💡
The people who turn up at this center have a strong incentive to pretend to have any condition they happen to be studying there--and the for-profit companies conducting the clinical trials have a strong incentive to pretend to believe them. Peter looked on as both sides seemed to be effectively bullshitting each other. When he saw people being asked to rate how well the drugs had worked, he thought they were often clearly just giving the interviewer whatever answer they wanted. So Peter concluded that the results from clinical trials of antidepressants--all the data we have--are meaningless. That means Irving is building his conclusion that their effect is very small (at best) on a heap of garbage, Peter declared. The trials themselves are fraudulent.