Citizen Science Double Blind Testing

I write articles for the Elephant Journal magazine about health issues under the name Ian Faulkner.

Normally double blind studies, in which both the participants and researchers don’t know who is receiving a particular intervention, are only attempted by corporations who can afford the testing. Thus the subject matter tested needs to relate directly to profitable products that the corporation paying for the study needs to sell. As a result, simple health solutions involving inexpensive supplements rarely received double blind testing.

I have written a number of health-related articles and get a lot of feedback from other people experimenting with health concepts. Using supplemental boron to mitigate arthritis is a good example. It is easy to use, inexpensive and very effective. Yet it does not get properly tested because there is no profit in it for pharmaceutical corporations. For myself, I have suffered from arthritis since I was 23. I was born in 1949. By 2010, I could not walk a few blocks without great pain in my feet and hips. I read accounts that in Australia the use of boron for arthritis was discovered in about 1968 and that many cases of arthritis just disappeared when 9 milligrams per day of boron was added to the diet. I tried it out and within 3 months I was almost completely cured of arthritis. At the University of Victoria in Mechanical Engineering, we have a club whose members have tried boron supplements to treat arthritis. It worked very well for several of us who tried it. Of course, this is not a real study but it did prevent suffering in our group. It seemed to work in about 80% of cases.

I wrote an article about boron and arthritis in the Elephant Journal. You can read the details by searching for “Ian Faulkner” at the magazine: http://elephantjournal.com. This simple solution has never been subjected to double blind studies because there is no profit in it.

In the process of answering letters from readers on health solutions, it has been suggested by several readers that we could easily build a simple double blind testing system on the internet. It would take only a small team to carry out a large double blind study using the following method:

Boron in a Citizen Science Double Blind Study

1. 1. Experimentation is carried out using boron in the form of borax. The element boron is a good example to test. Borax (sodium tetra-borate) is known to have almost the same toxicity as table salt. It was used in Australian hospital studies in the 1960s.

2. 2. The participants in the study are part of a club, which agrees to self-experiment, knowing the risks. This eliminates the need for an ethics committee approval.

3. 3. Samples of a boron supplement and a placebo are prepared by volunteers. 9 milligrams of boron are contained in the active capsules whereas a neutral substance such as sugar is placed in the placebo capsules. Three months of pills fill each sample bottle.

4. 4. A number coding system on the bottles distinguishes boron from the placebo.

5. 5. A second group of volunteers mails out the samples, along with a record of what number code was associated with the bottles. These volunteers do not know the number coding system. They send the samples to a third set of volunteers, the participants of the study.

6. 6. A third group of volunteers, the participants in the study, receive the samples and participate in the study by taking one capsule a day for 3 months. Research to date from Australia shows that it takes 3 months or less to see results depending on age. It is therefore known that a 3-month study is sufficient.

7. 7. After 3 months, software such as “Survey Monkey” is used to run a survey on the participants of the study. Questions are used to evaluate health effects.

8. 8. Finally, the results are analysed comparing the participants known to have used the placebo vs. those who were known to have used boron.

This kind of study is very inexpensive to do. It does not have an...