From the eminently quotable Tom Lee:
That's right: someday soon scientists may be working to develop a pill that can mimic the placebo effect.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Since there's such a godawful amount of clinical trial data out there in which placebos did more good than nothing at all, I like to think it might be perfectly legal to pick some common placebo and sell it over the counter, with an accurate statement of its beneficial effects, backed up by papers in the Lancet, NEJM, you name it.
At an honest markup, would it even be unethical?
The problem is, how do you keep people from finding out that your new drug is a placebo?
You don't bother keeping them from finding out! That would be inelegant, not to mention dishonorable. It'd be reported, but most people wouldn't be paying close enough attention to notice. It's OK if you lose some market share. I'm not greedy.
Hell, the customers you'd lose from that, you'd never have gotten to begin with, since the alert ones are the ones most likely both to read the ingredients and to know what sucrose is.
I once saw an ad for a "genuine placebo" bodybuilding pill. I guess they figured bodybuilders wouldn't know the difference between "placebo" and "steroid." Personally, I suspect they're experts on steroids.
As I understand it, current placebos are sugar pills. Obviously we need to develop a low-calorie substitute.
One good way to keep people from finding out that your drug is a placebo is to claim that it is a non-traditional medicine: homeopathic, naturopathic, alternative, native american, ayurvedic, herbal remedy -- whatever.
These "medicines" should do about as well as a placebo, assuming they are safe.
Q: "The problem is, how do you keep people from finding out that your new drug is a placebo?"
A: Religion.
As I understand it, current placebos are sugar pills. Obviously we need to develop a low-calorie substitute.
But we have a low calory placebo. It's called Ron Paul, and although it is technically a substantive vaccuum with some vaguely harmful past associations, it has a stunning ability to produce something comparable to 'Roid Rage.
Clinical trials would be problematic...
Actually, I believe this was not uncommon in the US as late as the 50s.
Perhaps big pharma should be engaging in clinical trials on the lactose sugar pill. As a placebo, they can use medicine.
Placebo's already exist, they're just marketed as Vitamins.
I realize it's a joke, but there might be a grain of insight there.
Placebo effects are not all psychological. Patients don't always just think that they are getting better, or stop believing in false symptoms. Sometimes real, beneficial physiological changes are triggered just because the patient thinks they will get better.
What if we found a more reliable way to do that than a sugar pill? What if we found a drug that made people more amenable to suggestions that they would get better?