How did you figure that?
Don, I was glad to see that you're using Wikipedia. Keep it up - you may be surprised how little you know about life. Here's one example:
"However, placebos can also have a surprisingly positive effect on a patient who knows that the given treatment is without any active drug, as compared with a control group who knowingly did not get a placebo."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlaceboThat can't be right. So what its saying is if a person KNOWS that he is being given empty tablets that will have no effect on him, that will have a positive effect in improving his health? Wtf, that makes no sense. I bet this is vandalism/inaccurate/biased source.
How can my health be improved if I know that I'm getting empty tablets? I can at least understand how theoratically it can have a positive psychological effect if they think its real treatment, but how the fuck can knowing that its not treatment improve anything? That's impossible.
Right, so I just checked the wikipedia page again, and that tidbit is still there. Its linked to this study as reference:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3008733/?tool=pmcentrezI read through that link and found this:
Patients were randomized to either open-label placebo pills presented as “placebo pills made of an inert substance, like sugar pills, that have been shown in clinical studies to produce significant improvement in IBS symptoms through mind-body self-healing processes” or no-treatment controls with the same quality of interaction with providers.
Then later on it goes to describe this:
Prior to randomization, patients from both groups met either a physician (AJL) or nurse-practitioner (EF) and were asked whether they had heard of the “placebo effect.” Assignment was determined by practitioner availability. The provider clearly explained that the placebo pill was an inactive (i.e., “inert”) substance like a sugar pill that contained no medication and then explained in an approximately fifteen minute a priori script the following “four discussion points:” 1) the placebo effect is powerful, 2) the body can automatically respond to taking placebo pills like Pavlov's dogs who salivated when they heard a bell, 3) a positive attitude helps but is not necessary, and 4) taking the pills faithfully is critical. Patients were told that half would be assigned to an open-label placebo group and the other half to a no-treatment control group. Our rationale had a positive framing with the aim of optimizing placebo response.
Then:
Patients randomized to the open-label placebo group were given a typical prescription medicine bottle of placebo pills with a label clearly marked “placebo pills” “take 2 pills twice daily.” <snip> Patients in the no treatment arm were reminded of the importance of the control arm.
SO, both groups are told that the pill will be inert, however both groups are told by authority figures, i.e doctors, that placebo effect is very powerful and can cure them, etc, while not being told any of the problems with placebo. Isn't that basically the same as telling them, this pill is very powerful?
Then furthermore, one of the group is given the placebo pills, and the other group is given no treatment whatsoever. Then surprisingly, when the group who was given the pills shows more improvement over the other, they claim that it shows that 'placebo without deception' works, when in fact, what they showed is that they showed improvement VS the group which got no treatment whatsoever.
patients treated with open-label placebo had significantly greater scores than the no-treatment control on the main outcome measure
Seems like a very biased study, and unrelated to the point made in this thread, which is that even when you think that the treatment is laughable, placebo could still work.
Topic: Pascal's Wager and homeopathy