3 ms·

This is part of the reason why candidate drugs need to show better outcomes over placebo. Placebo has measurable effects compared to nocebo.

• robocat 5y ago
  > nocebo Nocebo has measurable negative effects: it is the opposite of the placebo effect. Nocebo is health problems or a worsening of symptoms, solely due to the conscious or subconscious expectation of harm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo Highly relevant to Covid vaccinations because subconsciously a lot of people fear side effects, so perhaps many anecdotal side effects are purely psychosomatic. I think psychosomatic symptoms are still truely harmful: few people can just decide to think themselves better.