Talk:Placebo

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To-do list for Placebo:	edit · history · watch · refresh
Here are some tasks you can do: Merge: References instead of multiple citations to same reference (use <ref=name"...") Cleanup: introduction, several other sections Other: sort "further reading" references alphabetically (and perhaps by type)?

This article may be too technical for a general audience. Please help improve this article by providing more context and better explanations of technical details to make it more accessible, without removing technical details.

Contents 1 Canadian study 2 More discussion 3 Suggestion to merge 4 Symmetry in usage 5 Redirect 6 Merger into paradox/irony/oxymoron 7 Merging 8 Inline text or ref footnotes? 9 Obecalp 10 Article length 11 Intro 12 Notable absences of placebo effect 13 Placebo in psychotherapy 14 Changes that have been reverted 15 Revert 16 References added 17 WikiProject class rating 18 Reference link? 19 Relevance? 20 Are controlled studies REALLY designed to disadvantage the placebo condition? 21 cleanup tag 22 Children and animals 23 Potentially useful refs 24 Redundancy 25 Relative Strength 26 Cleanup 27 Early history of placebos

[edit] Canadian study

A group of Canadians have done an indepth analysis of the use of placebos for Health Canada and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research under Chair Heather Sampson the report can be found at http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/25139.html. -- 24.156.8.4300:59, 1 March 2005

[edit] More discussion

Hello. This article needs many more off article talk. Placebo is confusing and many use it as excuses for misconduct in medicine and getting money for sugar tablets or holy water snake oil. Article is very good, but I will see if I can be adding some more info to the talk. Hylas Chung 08:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

- It seems that the term "placebo" is being used here to discount innefective treatments; what would be more interesting and beneficial is how this mysterious mind:body connection works and it achieves such amazing results. Placebo could be a word that covers a number of self healing mechanisms that have a very real effect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.183.185.149 (talk) 07:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion to merge

It is my intention to edit a merge of these two pages for several reasons.

(1) to make the placebo article symmmetrical with the article on the counterpart, derivative term nocebo.

(2) a certain amount of the confusion within and between the two current articles, and right throughout the available literature, is caused by the fact that there are several different applications of the term placebo, which are in their origins, correct application, and function, so different that they are clearly homonyms (rather, that is, being examples of an essentially contested concept, where people are disputing about what is the best and most ideal instantiation of a notion upon which they all agree).

(3) the historical reasons for the emergence of certain of these terminological usages need to be explained; in particular because some of them have been responsible for the emergence of derivative terms and concepts (e.g., nocebo).

(4) much of the controversy is generated by a failure to distinguish which kind of placebo is being spoken of.

I am suggesting that a combined entry, with clear sections on, for example, "what does the term placebo denote?", "Why placebo effect?", "why placebo response?", "Ambiguity of usage of terminology" and similar important items can be discussed, clearly described and elaborated, before any of the issues relating to the role, ethics and relevance of placebos in drug trials can be either understood or discussed.

Anyway, produced the current article on nocebo, I would be prepared to submit a merged article within a short time, for all to view and edit further.

Such a presentation, would then also allow readers to understand the issue in the realm of medicine, as raised by:

Stewart-Williams, S. & Podd, J., "The Placebo Effect: Dissolving the Expectancy Versus Conditioning Debate", Psychological Bulletin, Vol.130, No.2, (March 2004), p.326:

Finally, it is sometimes argued that placebo effects are, by definition, desirable effects. After all, the word placebo comes from the Latin meaning “to please,” and the archetypal placebo event involves an improvement in health. The undesirable effects of inert agents have been dubbed nocebo effects, and the agents producing them nocebos (Hahn, 1997). Just as inert agents can produce analgesia, they can also produce hyperalgesia (Benedetti & Amanzio, 1997). In the latter case, the inert agent would be a nocebo and the hyperalgesia a nocebo effect. However, there are several problems with the placebo–nocebo distinction. Inert agents may sometimes simultaneously produce both desirable and undesirable symptoms. For example, the response may mimic not only the healing effects of drugs and other treatments, but also some of their side effects (Shapiro, Chassan, Morris, & Frick, 1974). In such instances, we would have to say that the agent in question is both a placebo and a nocebo. It would be more parsimonious to say that the same agent (a placebo) can simultaneously produce both desirable and undesirable effects. Another problem is that the same effect might be desirable for one person but undesirable for another. For instance, placebo immunosuppression may be undesirable to most people but desirable to people suffering an autoimmune disorder (Olness & Ader, 1992). In this case, we would have to say that the former group had taken nocebos but the latter placebos, and we could not know which we had administered until we had established whether the recipients considered the effects desirable or not. Furthermore, although the same effect was produced in both cases, and presumably through the same mechanisms, by labeling one a placebo effect and one a nocebo effect, we would in effect be treating it as two different phenomena, simply because it was desirable to one group but not the other. These considerations lead us to suggest that, despite the origin of the word placebo, the desirability of the effect should not be part of the definition [of the terms placebo and placebo effect].

• References
• Benedetti, F., & Amanzio, M. (1997). The neurobiology of placebo analgesia: From endogenous opioids to cholecystokinin. Progress in Neurobiology, 52, 109–125.
• Hahn, R. A. (1997). The nocebo phenomenon: Scope and foundations. In A. Harrington (Ed.), The placebo effect: An interdisciplinary exploration (pp. 56–76). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Olness, K., & Ader, R. (1992). Conditioning as an adjunct in the pharmacotherapy of lupus erythematosus. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 13, 124–125.
• Shapiro, A. K., Chassan, J., Morris, L. A., & Frick, R. (1974). Placebo-induced side effects. Journal of Operational Psychiatry, 6, 43–46.

--- It would look something like this (given that I have already merged 4, 5 & 6 under nocebo): I believe that we need the following six divisions to clearly disambiguate the mess:

(1) Placebo: describing the evolution of the term placebo, from the Septuagint version of the Psalms, as translated by Jerome into his first version of the Vulgate, and how this translation was used as the text for the Roman Catholic "Office of the Dead" ritual, etc.,etc. and how, following this thread, how the original term placebo has only one meaning: a simulator.

Then all of the applications of such a dummy simulator in medicine and pharmacology could be discussed.

A second section would also need to appear to detail the pejorative use of the term placebo -- in the period where modern scientific medicine was emerging from the morass of herbal medicine and traditional physic, and was atempting to dissociate itself from so-called "heroic medicine" -- to designate therpies that had once been thought efficacious, but were now found (per medium of this fore-runner of evidence based medicine) to be bereft of active ingredients.

A third section would need to appear to deal with the therapist-delivered placebo (essentially the legendary sugar pill) which embodied the notion that a placebo was a "pleaser".

All of this is because the issue of elaborating all of the considerably different aspects of all of the different sorts of placebo, requires such a sort of exposition.

(2) Placebo Effect: Stressing that this description ascribes agency to the drug. A short note stating that this was either the consequence of being given either a sugar pill, or of being given a dummy, inert, simulator (it didn't matter which) -- and, as a consequence, the administraion (in either case) of something which, both by definition, and by stipulation, contained no active substances, and therefore, could not logically be spoken of having any sort of substance-centred agency (as it was all subject-centred response). But, in addition, once the term placebo began to be used by some people to denote "an active and pleasing drug", it was then technically possible to speak of a placebo effect.

(3) Placebo Response: Essentially a matching piece to that which I have written about "nocebo response".

This would then lead on to (4) Nocebo; (5) Nocebo Effect; and (6) Nocebo Response: as it now apppears under nocebo.

Finally, due to the interwoven histories of the terms placebo, placebo effect, placebo reaction, placebo response, nocebo, nocebo effect, nocebo reaction, and nocebo response,I believe that everyone would be far better served if the two placebo sections are merged; and, as a consequence are symmetrical with article on nocebo.

Given all of the above, I must also add that I have thought about things for a very long time, and I really can't come up with any single argument against merging thhe two articles. Anyway, I offer this up for your consideration cogtrue 00:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Surprised to see no response to your post for such a long time. I offer my views with regards to your arguments:

1. The symmetry argument doesn't necessarily hold in my opinion as the terms "placebo" and "placebo effect" are well known while "nocebo" and "nocebo effect" are not. A search on Google results in 1,200,000 pages on "placebo effect" and 18,600 pages on "nocebo effect". So there is no symmetry in usage.
2. The confusion within the articles will not necessarily be resolved by a merge. On the other hand, if a merge does resolve the confusion, there is no reasoin why the articles couldn't be separated again without causing confusion again.
3. Could the emergence of various terms be explained satisfactorily but without going into too much detail in the main (placebo) article?
4. Again, would a merge help clarify the term "placebo"? Not necessarily.

Having said all that, I am much in favour of your presentation of the article's structure. Providing such a structure will go a long way to alleviate all issues you are talking about. However, since the term "placebo effect" is widely used, I doubt you could simply merge ii into the main article.

In summary, I would favour a structured presentation of "placebo" as outlined, but also keeping the "placebo effect" article. This solution would integrate all features of your suggestion while leaving open the possibility for a detailed explanation of the "placebo effect." Aquirata 22:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello. I think placebo and effect should be merge. But it should also be kept seperate. The merging one will be the top hierarchy and be summarized over time. The other ones can be linked. Redundant lines can be cut by good editing. Thanks. Hylas Chung 05:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello, as a personn working in pharmaceutical industry, I think that placebo and placebo effect are two different things. A placebo is the reconstitued medicine without the active ingredient and if used by human can give a placebo effect, but placebo is also made for analytical tests. In this case no placebo effect. Secondly, placebo effect can be obtained by taken a placebo, but also for many other reason. for example when you take a medecine by oral route, you often feel better in few minutes in spite of it is still not in your blood.

that's why i think that it not the best idea to merge placebo effect and placebo.--Leridant 08:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I also oppose the merge, the placebo effect is a significant topic worthy of its own article. Addhoc 12:54, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I oppose too, Wiki should be easy to browse with common intuition which dictates in opposition to merger. (I'm an unregistered user) - a chemistry student from Israel.

I support the merge, very related topics. --Afa86 21:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Symmetry in usage

On 15 June, in relation to Nocebo, Aquirata commented as follows:

The symmetry argument doesn't necessarily hold in my opinion as the terms "placebo" and "placebo effect" are well known while "nocebo" and "nocebo effect" are not. A search on Google results in 1,200,000 pages on "placebo effect" and 18,600 pages on "nocebo effect". So there is no symmetry in usage.

Whilst this comment is accurate, in one sense it is not entirely "correct".

The issue with the term "nocebo" (the bringer of harm) is that it is, essentially, a deviant usage that is being ever more actively discouraged in the technical medical literature. The term "nocebo" only exists because somebody has seen a need to produce a counterpart of the benefactor "type" of "placebo" (I am yet to complete that section of Placebo (origins of technical term)) -- the drug that produces a beneficial response -- namely, the drug that produces a harmful response.

Therefore, in a general sense, the 1,200,000:18,600 ratio is misleading; because it is far more a case of "every time somebody uses the deviant term "nocebo" it further cements the inaccurate "benevolent" usage of the corresponding term "placebo". Thankfully the majority of usages of the term placebo refer to an inert simulator; not to a "pleaser".

From the above, it is my intention to ensure that the "nocebo" and "placebo" articles reflect one another in an appropriate way -- when it is necessary -- and that the rest of the placebo article speaks of the dummy simulators. Lindsay658 05:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Merge the articles.--Ncosmob 21:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect

The article for Derbisol redirects here, but Derbisol isn't mentioned on the page. Jeremymiles 18:40, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger into paradox/irony/oxymoron

I think it would be more appropriate if placebo effect, as a phenomenon or whatever you call it, be merged under the class "oxymoron" or "irony". "Placebo", it must be stressed would be appropriate, but not the term "placebo effect". There is a vast difference between the two. Merging the two would only serve to blur the distinction and that would just confuse one and everybody. This is my humble perspective.Sriram sh 13:34, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

 ???? What do those subjects have to do with placebo or placebo effect? -- Fyslee 14:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

All that I wanted to say was that for anyone acquainted with pharmaceuticals and drugs, placebo and placebo effect are two different things. Of course, placebo effect could be broadly used in any sense one wants so long as the term gives the full extent of the meaning, which is, to say, a contradiction of sorts, and not just in the medical sense of the term. So, the articles MUST be separate and there is no ground for a merger.Sriram sh 10:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging

I merged Placebo (origins of technical term) and Placebo (medicine) and Placebo Effect into Placebo, as they were less like distinct subjects and more like content forking of Placebo.

I split off Placebo (at funeral), as medieval funeral meal gatecrashers have no relevance to medicine. Anthony Appleyard 13:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I have tidied and merged in Uses of the term placebo. Anthony Appleyard 09:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Sugar pill should also be merged. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-12-16 10:13Z
• Done. Anthony Appleyard 11:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inline text or ref footnotes?

I prefer all text (except authors' names and dates and page numbers) to be inline, not in footnotes, as over 40 years of reading books I have had a weariness and tediousness of having to keep on leafing back and forth between the text and notes. Anthony Appleyard 09:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Obecalp

There is an incoming redirect from Obecalp but no explanation of what Obecalp is in the text (yes, it's "placebo" backwards but there is no mention of context or whether it's an actual product). Wikipedia guidelines say that an incoming redirect should be explained in the first couple of paragraphs. -76.4.49.201 17:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article length

This article is rather long - too long? Ben Finn 15:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Way too long! And it's almost unreadable! We need some serious cleanup and splitting here. — Kieff | Talk 19:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Too long, but little grounds for splitting. The main problem is that there is too much detail on the historical clinical trials, some of which might merit their own entries (as relevant to the history of medicine) but many of which should simply be reduced to conclusion and citation. Ohwilleke (talk) 18:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I think a series of mergers is to blame for this. Rather than a thoughtful combination of data, we get the same thing being said five different ways, for each of the five articles that were merged into this one. --Infophile ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Intro

The introduction is a bit weird, since it starts with a quote rather than a definition, followed by a parenthetical comment qualifying the quote. --Starwed 10:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it is awkwardly written, almost enough to justify a cleanup tag. If I knew anything about the topic I would rewrite it myself. GofG _|^|_| Contribs 14:01, 06 day of march sincerly melissa seymour miami dade college(UTC)

I took the liberty, and hope this version meets approval of others. --Ginkgo100^talk 20:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notable absences of placebo effect

This section should be deleted. Citations are available to contradict this in-cited claim. One such citation is here http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0924-977X(96)88014-X

[edit] Placebo in psychotherapy

The lead seems to say that it is only medicines that have the placebo effect. Also types of psychotherapies have no real effect other than the placebo. And also accupunture and chiropractic. ProtoCat 19:38, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe that "medication or treatment" might be a better way of encompassing all. However, like everything on Wikipedia, we need a reliable source which documents/defines this. Any thoughts or suggestions? -- Levine2112 ^discuss 21:54, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Despite the movement of this article towards becoming an almost exclusive account of pill-popping, I suggest that your needs will be met by using the far more general and far more appropriate term "therapeutic intrusions"?

Given that, in the absence of it being applied with some sort of therapist intention, the entity in question can not be considered to be a "placebo" — regardless of whether it be animal, mineral or vegetable, or whether it be a chemical or simply "talking".

Despite all of the ramblings that one might read, a placebo is always a "placebo"-counterpart of some other thing!

And that particular "some other thing" is always (at least in a medical sense) a therapeutic intrusion.

From this, therefore, whatever is designated placebo is the "active" therapeutic intrusion, from which the supposed active ingredient has been removed.

From this, and despite the movement within this article to maroon the core concept placebo onto a remote island called "sugar pill" (the reason why I am no longer contributing to the article!), a placebo is always a counterpart of some "thing" (i.e, it can never be in, and of itself a placebo, it is always a placebo-counterpart of an "active" something else).

Anyway, I suggest that "therapeutic intrusions" sufficiently reflect the fact that the intrusions are performed with a deliberate intention.

Also, btw, the July 2005 edition of the Journal of Clinical Psychology (i.e., Vol.61, No.7, contains a significant number of papers that address the various issues connected with the use of "placebo"-type controls in the appraisal of the effectiveness of various sorts of psychotherapy. Perhaps that might be the first place for you to look?Lindsay658 02:37, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

"Therapeutic intrusions". Thanks for that, Lindsay658. You taught me something! So, is it a misuse of the term "placebo effect" to explain some people's rationale of why certain alternative medicines (for instance) appear to be effective? (And of course, per your definition, I mean a therapy that is pill-less.) -- Levine2112 ^discuss 02:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Brief answer. No time for greater detail. Sorry!

(a) In my view (based on a considerable amount of detailed study of such things), from the origins and original application of the term placebo (by scientists, that is), it is inescapably correct and irrevocably true that, given that a placebo is (in terms of drug therapy):

the entire conglomerate of active drug,

PLUS the entire drug administration ritual,

PLUS all of the other things and paraphernalia that accompany an "active treatment" (including the diagnostic, prognostic, prescription and other rituals)

MINUS whatever it might be that the "received wisdom" supposes (or, hopefully, the accurate scientific knowledge knows) is the chemical that is uniquely responsible for the therapeutic changes routinely observed whenever that "active drug" is administered,

the usage of the term placebo is only appropriate in circumstances where the response of a group of subjects:

(i) to the entire drug administration ritual, etc. PLUS the format of the drug (without the designated" "active ingredient, that is)

is being contrasted with

(ii)another group of subjects that have received the "active drug" per medium of all of those rituals.

This, then, gives a measure of the (a) extent to which a subject is responding to the "active ingredient" itself, contrasted to (b) the extent to which subjects simply respond to the rituals themselves.

(For example, Kirsch has found that whenever the efficacy of "active drugs" and their "placebo counterparts" have been contrasted in tests in which subjects are completely unaware that any administration has taken place, there is always a zero result from the placebos. In other words, a subject is 100% responding to the rituals; and, in the absence of any knowledge that the ritual has taken place, there is nothing for them to respond to.)

(b) Whenever somebody says something about a response to, say, an acupuncture treatment as being "just a placebo", they are saying three things:

(i) they are accepting that there has been, indeed, some sort of change in the subject;

(ii) they are unable, within their understanding of the universe, to identify an "active ingredient"; and

(iii) as a consequence of (ii) the only conclusion they can draw is that somehow the changes have been generated though some sort of psychosomatic factor (i.e., something in the mind has been able to produce a change in the body)

(c)In the realms of "talking" psychotherapy, the issue of placebo controls in testing treatment efficacy becomes far more than just an abstract intellectual, philosophical question -- for, if one is to test the efficacy of a particular therapeutic intrusion by contrasting "active treatment" against "placebo treatment", one must be able to identify the "active ingredient" (so that, of course, it can be present in the first and absent in the second.

Now, in addition to the difficulty of isolating indisputably "active ingredients" a further problem arises: if there are no "active ingredients", then is any and all of the observed efficacy due to the therapeutic rituals alone?

(d)Kirsch and his colleagues, to me, seem to be on the right track when they speak of trials that contrast the efficacy of "active drugs" and their "placebo counterparts" as actually measuring something that they call "response expectancy"; and in their opinion, it is the individual subject's own level of "response expectancy" that dictates the level to which they will "respond" to the rituals (regardless of whether the "active ingredient" is present or absent).

(e)Lastly, an I don't want to re-open this can of worms in relation to those who are now driving this article in such a counter-productive "placebo effect" direction, there is no such thing as a placebo effect! There can't be; simply because, by definition, in terms of its target condition, the placebo is always 100% inert. The only thing one can legitimately speak of is a "placebo response" within a subject; there is never any sort of "placebo effect" hidden somewhere within the drug.

Hope that helps. In hasteLindsay658 04:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Remarkable! If that was in haste, I imagine you can write a dissertation of the subject. It makes me think that the term "placebo effect" is actually a paradoxical oxymoron. To summarize, it sounds as though you are saying that the term is often (if not always) misused. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 16:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I realize that the term "therapeutic intrusion" could be construed as being intentionally applied with some pejorative connotation, for some antagonistic purpose. I would propose that, for those sorts of reason, the term "therapeutic intervention" seems to be far less provocative; and, as well, in terms of the normal, conventional sorts of medical discourse, it also seems to be quite a well-worn medical expression anyway.Lindsay658 04:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I have added a section on the concept of placebo to an already long and discursive article, believing this needed some treatment. However I'd be interested in joining a cooperative clean-up of the whole thing if others are interested. John PriceJohnHarmonPrice 11:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with Lindsey's definition: Many alternative therapies have been tried and shown to have no better response than a placebo, therefore, it's reasonable to presume that improvements seen from them in practice are due to a "placebo effect". Indeed, the very reason why placebos are necessary is because of the very act of treatment having an effect.

Unless Lindsey can show a reliable medical source making that claim, I cannot agree with him. Adam Cuerden ^talk 16:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Adam Cuerden: somewhere you seem to have your wires crossed. What you have written agrees with my position 100% (and, also, what you have said reflect what I have said).

Except, of course, that you have made the conventional category mistake of referring to a "placebo effect", when there can never be a placebo-centred-agent-of-change, and there can only be a subject-centred-response.

BTW this is where the "placebo effect" confusion all began, in a number of the early papers that spoke of subjects having subject-centred placebo responses the authors happened to parenthetically remark that it was obvious to anyone with any clinical experience that, in many cases, placebo drugs were efficacious (i.e., in many cases when dummy treatments were administered, patients got better), and the comprehensive misunderstanding of these parenthetical comments (or, in the majority cases, a total failure to read the original papers), have led many to incorrectly maintain the view that these authors were speaking of placebo-centered agency.Lindsay658 18:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, is that what you meant? Sorry, I misread your objection to the term as a rejection of the possibility of psychological effects skewing clinical outcomes, and particularly misread your section ending "(iii) as a consequence of (ii) the only conclusion they can draw is that somehow the changes have been generated though some sort of psychosomatic factor (i.e., something in the mind has been able to produce a change in the body)" which I thought implied that that wasn't a valid opinion; that the alternative/ineffective treatment actually had important merit that the scientist didn't see. I agree with you that "placebo effect" is a poorly-chosen phrase, and placebo response is what's really meant, but we provbably have to provisionally accept the term, because it's so widespread. Of course, we do need to be perfectly clear that the so-called "placebo effect" is instead just a tendency to expect to feel better, and using confirmation bias and other mild delusions on yourself to see improvement, and perhaps force yourself to do things you didn't think you could. As far as I know the literature, it doesn't cause any changes to anything that can't be affected by mood, e.g. tumor growth rates, but can work well on psychological effects of diseases like pain or depression. Adam Cuerden ^talk 02:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the first sentence should include the word treatment as in psychotherapy. FatherTree 21:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes that have been reverted

Anthony Appleyard (talk · contribs) has reverted my edits and requested it be discussed.

Per my first change, I moved the "Meanings of placebo" section to the Placebo disambig page. It is more suited there since most of the meanings aren't directly related to the general meaning assumed in the article.

My second change, I removed the "Notable absences of placebo effect" section. This has been uncited since February and is very questionable since it offers no explination or further details. Not enough information for an entire section anyways.

My last change was removing the unecyclopedia summary section, located at the bottom of the article. There is no need to rehash the entire article in an unorganized, bulleted list. The article is already overly long and this section provides nothing benefetial to the article, since it is already sumarized at the beginning of the article. Also, why are there questions in the section? This isn't an elementary school text book with a quiz and a summary at the end of a lesson. --Android Mouse 05:47, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revert

I have reverted User:Anonywiki's recent block of edits in their entirety, since they consist only of unsourced POV. —Ashley Y 08:26, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Just because there are no citations, doesn't mean "they consist only of unsourced POV". The page was a mess and I made it more neutral and correctly stated that giving a placebo as an actual treatment is rare and quite pseudoscientific.

I'm sure if you go to the homeopathy page you are told that it's pseudoscientific and that very few doctors practice it, why not here? After all, homeopathy has the same effect. Talking about studies always conveys a POV.

Large studies have said placebo=bad and were at the top of the article as well as one or two studies saying placebo=good. They were removed and replaced with studies ALL saying placebo=good. So I took them out, please do NOT revert my edit, it's clear that having no study at all is NPOV. Anonywiki 03:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:RS and WP:NPOV. —Ashley Y 07:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References added

References were added and a medical definition of Placebo effect as well as it seems that the article was concentrated in placebo medicines and forgetting placebo healing procedures. The article has been placed under the WP:MED scope ℒibrarian2 20:01, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reference link?

Does anyone have a link for this PDF article cited in the Methodology of administration section? Thanks.

M. Nimmo (2005) Placebo: Real, Imagined or Expected? A Critical Experimental Exploration Final year undergraduate Critical Review, Dept. of Psychology, University of Glasgow. PDF copy.

Bricker (talk) 00:20, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Bricker. Yes, it is http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/placebo.pdf - Tekaphor (talk) 02:05, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Much obliged to you, Tekaphor. Bricker (talk) 10:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relevance?

Are the sections "Willow bark" and "Mercury for syphilis" relevant to the subject of placebo? If so, this should be made clear in the text, currently it isn't. 192.122.223.171 (talk) 12:48, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Are controlled studies REALLY designed to disadvantage the placebo condition?

I question the statement that 'It is a view held by many "that placebo-controlled studies often are designed in such a way that disadvantages the placebo condition"[18].' First of all, 'it is a view held by many' is a classic example of a phrase used by a writer on wikipedia who wants to promote their own point of view but hide behind an attribution of the view to an unspecified "many." This at first blush reads like point of view pushing. Second, anyone who is competently designing a performing a controlled clinical study will take great pains to try to make the test condition and the control (placebo) condition identical in every way except the medication vs. placebo. That's the whole purpose of having a control condition in the first place! Anyone who is designing a clinical trial to disadvantage the control condition is simply being unethical. If they documented the ways they biased against the placebo condition, the study would challenged at the time of peer-review and likely not accepted for publication. If they bias against the control condition and DON'T document this, they're being unethical, vulnerable to a scandal if someone blows the whistle, and putting their own careers at risk.

I suggest simply rewriting this sentence to state something like "For a new drug to be accepted for general clinical use, it must typically show a statistically significant improvement compared to the placebo condition." —Preceding unsigned comment added by AIDSvideos (talk • contribs) 17:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree here...the reference for the above claim is "(Herbert and Gaudino, 2005, pp.788–789)" with no actual indication of more publication details. It does sound weasel-ly. — Scientizzle 18:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] cleanup tag

i've put one on as it's a mess, right from after the contents, as this talk page admits. it's also overlong --Mongreilf (talk) 11:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Children and animals

The argument is used again and again in Talk:Homeopathy (and sometimes in the article itself), that the positive result from such-and-such a trial (or anecdote) cannot be explained by the placebo effect because the subjects were children (babies) or animals. The possibility that adults/humans with knowledge of whether the subject is receiving a verum or placebo can unconsciously influence the subject, or that the measures of improvement, even if they are largely objective, can be influenced by the knowledge of those evaluating the conditions of the subjects, are often not recognized. It would be helpful if this article could include a section on this topic. --Art Carlson (talk) 14:27, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

even though there may be no placebo effect, there could be other non-specific effects, such as just giving attention to the subject. There are often many non-specific effects that could possibly alter the subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.132.12.81 (talk) 02:24, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Potentially useful refs

I'm just listing these here as I find them - I haven't looked yet to see how many are already used in the article - but here goes:

• PMID 15266510 - Cochrane Library review of the placebo effect
• PMID 11372012 - NEJM 2004
• PMID 12406519 - Definitions of placebo
• PMID 18226748 - Contains a useful, if brief, history in the full-text version.
• PMID 18250260 - Biochemical mumbo-jumbo...
• PMID 16280578 - ... and a review article covering the same.
• PMID 14976306 - If it's in Science, it must be true.
• PMID 15377572 - Physician attitudes toward placebo.
• PMID 16549251 - a 2006 review article from the NIMH.

Any others? I'll keep an eye out. Once I've gathered a few I'll start working on the article. MastCell ^Talk 22:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's a good one: Waber RL, Shiv B, Carmon Z, Ariely D (2008). "Commercial features of placebo and therapeutic efficacy". JAMA 299 (9): 1016–7. doi:10.1001/jama.299.9.1016. PMID 18319411.  — Scientizzle 01:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

A few more references, often more practice oriented:

• Great expectations: the evolutionary psychology of faith-healing and the placebo response
• The physician healer: ancient magic or modern science?
• The Magic of Science and the Science of Magic: An Essay on the Process of Healing
• Placebo, culture and magic (Spanish); argues that nowadays the placebo effect is often more negative than it used to be
• Placebos: a review of the placebo response

--Hans Adler (talk) 21:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Redundancy

While going through the article to fix section headers, I noticed that a lot of the information here seems to be redundant. One major way this article could be improved would be to compress a lot of that together.

Also, there's a lot of information on studies on the placebo effect here. Perhaps we could fork that to its own article? --Infophile ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Relative Strength

While many sections of this article are excessively detailed, one are of wide general interest is not discussed in detail. For which conditions have the placebo effect been strong, and for which have they been relatively modest. No comprehensive data is called for, but examples at the low, medium and high end of the range would be useful. The fact that there is a wide variation is mentioned, but there is no follow up information. Ohwilleke (talk) 18:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

This article had a chaotic mixture of Harvard references and footnote references. I have ordered the references alphabetically, categorised them (books, research, general audience), and converted all footnote references into Harvard style. There are still a couple of footnotes left: Harvard references look a bit strange in the lede, and in some cases further down there were additional references. I have also removed four(!) references related to the old testament, and with no obvious connection to the article.

Based on the theory that the article is currently so disorganised that I can't make its structure worse, I will now organise it into three chapters: Placebos, Placebo effect, and Placebo-controlled studies. I hope that's OK for the regulars here. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:05, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the following references from the list of historical or modern research papers because they were not used. The lists are so long that these papers don't serve any purpose there if they are not cited.

--Hans Adler (talk) 22:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Early history of placebos

Compassion, and not raillery, is to be bestowed on the hypochondriac, as the firm persuasion which he entertains will not allow his feelings to be treated as imaginary, nor his apprehension of danger to be considered as groundless, however the physician may be of opinion, that it is the case in both respects. To gain his confidence, it will be necessary to attend to his complaints, as if they were all real; and to satisfy him, it will by all means be advisable to give him some kind of innocent medicine or placebo, changing it from time to time, whenever he expresses any disappointment of relief. The general health is at the same time to be put into the best state possible. — Robert Thomas (1813), The Modern Practice of Physic, 4th ed., London, p.309. (Perhaps we can use this.) --Hans Adler (talk) 19:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Mention of a "mock-heroic placebo" in 1803. [2]. A placebo ineffective for Syphilis, 1809. [3] --Hans Adler (talk) 20:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)