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From the actual trial: "Patients were randomized to either open-label placebo pills presented as “placebo pills made of an inert substance, like sugar pills, th
by gehwartzen 9y ago
From the actual trial: "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."
Sounds like they didn't give them pills that the patients "know don't work" as the Vox title states, but instead told the patients that trials showed that these pills did work just not through a chemically induced action.
- comex 9y agoBut that's the truth, isn't it? From a scientific perspective, it might be interesting to see how well the placebo effect holds up if patients literally think it won't work, e.g. by selecting participants who haven't heard of the placebo effect, and not informing them. But from the perspective of helping people, if the placebo effect is to some extent caused by knowledge of the placebo effect, so much the better; there's no deception in that.