Placebo Effects and the High Cost of Medicine

You suffer from chronic headaches. You’ve been given an expensive prescription by your doctor. You feel better. Later you find out the doctor has misled you, and the pill was, in fact, a placebo. How would you feel?! Angry? Happy because you felt better?

The Journal of General Internal Medicine recently found that almost half of 230 Chicago clinical physicians surveyed used placebos, and only told 4% of their patients about it. 95 % said they believe placebos have a positive therapeutic effect.

Placebo studies have been going on for years. The UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute reported in 2002 that:

“Between 30 - 60% of patients with illnesses ranging from arthritis to depression report a substantial improvement in their symptoms after receiving a placebo. It is not clear that placebo can “cure” any illness, but the power of the placebo effect in improving symptoms and reducing suffering is impressive.”

They went on to state that when a placebo is given, brain function changes, but differently then it changes with real medications. The research has since been duplicated.

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