The Placebo Effect

[CDarwin]

The premise of my question here is fairly simple. One of the basic ways drugs are evaluated is to see if they work better than a placebo. It strikes me, then, that the placebo might be of some use. Many traditional medicines rely heavily on this in fact, and practitioners are quite up front about that.

 

So why shouldn't Western medicine take similar advantage of the power of human perception? Are there circumstances where subscribing a medicine with no actual medicinal properties (a sugar pill, basically) would be perfectly appropriate and the best for the patient?

[Psycho]

Because it is unethical and the placebo effect doesn't work on everyone, it is immoral to sell nothing and claim it is something especially as a doctor.

[blike]

Because it is unethical and the placebo effect doesn't work on everyone, it is immoral to sell nothing and claim it is something especially as a doctor.

Even the best drugs we have don't work on everyone either. You've used the words "unethical" and "immoral", but you haven't told us why they are unethical or immoral. Because it would be selling "nothing" and claiming it is "something"? Is that the only reason? I'm not taking a position here, I just want you to elaborate.

[Psycho]

Even the best drugs we have don't work on everyone either. You've used the words "unethical" and "immoral", but you haven't told us why they are unethical or immoral. Because it would be selling "nothing" and claiming it is "something"? Is that the only reason? I'm not taking a position here, I just want you to elaborate.

 

It is unethical for a doctor to miss lead a patient into believe something that isn't true, if they start doing this now how can you trust them when you actually have a problem.

 

Where as I agree with the idea in principle you can't just go round treating everyone like idiots even if they are.

 

Plus then there comes the whole legal ramifications when a doctor miss diagnoses something and then gives a pill that does nothing, of course the same is the case if they miss diagnose you anyway, but then if you still feel bad you aren't going to be sitting at home waiting for the "drugs" to kick in.

 

It makes no sense if the condition is going to fix itself to give someone something just to make them feel better in the short term as inevitable it will do no harm to them giving them nothing and no harm to the reputation of the profession either.

 

However the case could be made that doctors should always do what's in the patients best interest.