Article Review: The Magic of the Placebo by David Bjerklie

The placebo effect has been affecting people for hundreds of years. In the 1940s sugar pills were sold in doctors’ catalogs specifically for the purpose of prescribing them to psychiatric patients. Today, over 60% of doctors admit to prescribing placebos to their patients, although there is an unwritten rule among doctors in the United States that placebos should no longer be given to patients. Some even do it on a regular basis because they believe the effect a fake drug has on the brain is more effective for its price than the real medication or treatment. In the documentary, Placebo: Cracking the Code, viewers see a few different perspective of the placebo effect. They hear from doctors, patients, and researchers to more fully understand the ins and outs of the placebo effect. These different viewpoints serve as an effective way to bring light the producers’ purpose: to show just helpful and sometimes harmful placebo drugs can be.

Misconception with equipoise will make the barrier between therapeutic and research null. Its goal in producing reliable and generalizable knowledge is coiled in with ethical difficulty. That’s why on an ethical standpoint, benefiting a collective group needs to be weighed with the rights of the participant patients in the clinical research. However, the goal of equipoise is beneficial since its main priority is extracting epistemic information from the randomized clinical trials. The useful information is needed since equipoise follows the principle of having “a state of genuine uncertainty.” This affects both theoretical and clinical. So, trials that are redundant can be marked out by taking equipoise into account since the trials have already been run where there is already certainty of the outcome. So, to detail what equipoise allows underneath the principle of “non-exploitation” is that there will be no exploitation of participants or patients with a needless trial that holds no useful outcome. Equipoise becomes a necessary condition in order for a trial to become ethical since trials must be reviewed to be deemed of value. But, there’s an underlying factor that equipoise’s uncertainty trials do not bring about and that is the health of the patients. Participant patients will undergo trials of uncertainty so there is a possibility that the patient may be harmed during the process. If the trial proceeds, then the health of the patients will be even more at risk, disregarded and exploited in order to grasp epistemic information. The moral principles between medical therapy and those that guide clinical research is different. Though, equipoise is valuable in a collective sense – it is exploitative of participant patients by failing to consider the balance with the subject and societal

Proponents of placebo-prescribing argue that clinicians “can use non-deceptive means to promote a positive placebo response in their patients” (Brody, 1982, 112). However, some proponents also argue that

When you are deceived by someone, you are unable to govern yourself in the appropriate manner. Meaning that, your decisions and actions are altered because of the lack of truth involved. When someone lies, they are explicitly confirming something that is false. Placebos, which are inactive ingredients, are given to patient when physicians believe that the source of illness is not actually physical, but it is mental. Placebos violate both Mill and Kant ethical principles.

As Marston states, “people need real cures based on real science – not misleading and antiquated animal experiments (Pycroft and Marston 36).”

And this is more or less how the placebo effect was first demonstrated in the year 1799, by a man of the name "John Haygarth," using phony medicinal "tractors" made by another physician "Elish Perkins" (Hence "perkins Tractors") I hop you enjoyed my take on it, no matter how short it

Stanovich explains “helping people is an applied part of an incredibly large number of fields, including social work, education, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, police science, human resources, and speech therapy.” (p. 6) By using the placebo effect, people can be “tricked” into believing their sickness or symptoms have been treated, which in my opinion, is a positive way that psychology has the potential to help others. For example, if someone is depressed and is given a certain type of pill they were told actually works to help with depression, but is really nothing, then it will actually do more for their illness because they believe it can help them. This example shows that psychology can be a science because it is the study of the mind and how people can believe that something works for them, even though it may be nothing at all. It also shows that the mind is a powerful thing, and can be shown through the study of

The concept of the Placebo Effect in chapter 2 really explain why people act the way they

In both the CSMT and placebo group, patients who are told their intervention may make them feel better are more hopeful and could under-report their symptoms. The results are not clinically significant because the results while positive, are inconclusive as to whether their was a placebo effect occurring, and further testing is needed to conclude the clinical use of this intervention.

A person may be experiencing being depressed for a period of time and the depression gets worse so they go to the doctor. The doctor gives them some sample pills to try for one month. The person starts to feel better and ask the doctor to write a prescription for the same pills. In this case the person may have been experiencing seasonal depression or situational depression. The Placebo Effect may have been alright for that person. However, if this person was becoming depressed due to a chemical imbalance then the Placebo Effect would not help them. I don’t think it is safe because if that person is really suffering from a

A debate rages in psychology. It is not one of the usual kind, dwelling on a specific aspect of the mind or a new drug, but a controversy dealing with the very foundations of psychology. The issue is determining how psychologists should treat patients and on what psychologists base their choices. Some feel that they must be empirically-supported treatments, treatments backed by hard data and scientifically supported. Others feel that this standard for treatments is much too confining for the complex field of psychology and that many good treatments cannot be backed by hard data. The American Psychological Association President Task Force on Evidence-Based Treatment came out with a plan for psychology that effectively maintains a high

The mind has often been referred to as the organ of consciousness. Daily functions such as thinking, breathing, and most any task we do rely heavily on use of this precious organ. However, through the use of placebos, it is becoming clear that the mind may have an even greater influence on our daily lives, influencing our perceptions of well- being. The placebo, which is Latin for to please, is a sugar-pill that is given under the guise of being a medication thought to treat an ailment. The use of placebos has shown us that the mind has tremendous potential to induce physiological changes in our body based solely on its perceptions. In example, as we swallow a sugar pill thinking

The placebo effect could have a large effect on how painkillers and medicine works on humans. Generally, the best type of painkiller is one that is higher in dosage. However, many tests have been showing that placebos are becoming to get to the same level as over the counter and even some behind the counter medicine. In 2013, patients in clinical trials only reported that drugs help nine percent more than placebos. Secondly, it’s been used much more in everyday use. In 2010, there was a study that reported forty percent of the time, physicians used an inactive pill, and eleven percent had prescribed inactive pills or injections. Surprisingly, this worked quite well. However, there was a clause. The placebo was shown to be quite effective, but only as a painkiller. A test in 1978 (which is still

The placebo effect has always been one of the most important and mysterious phenomena. A large body of research suggest that medicine that contains inactive substances can improve health and mental well-being in some individuals. Some patients have shown great improvements with many ailments including asthma, blood pressure, pain, anxiety, depression, and the list goes on. The placebo effect, although one of the best-known treatments, is also the least understood. The placebo effect has been tested at many levels including physiological, psychological, and the neurochemical. The three primary mechanisms used are the classical conditioning, observational learning, and expectancy. With classical conditioning the placebo effect emerges from neutral stimuli being paired such as the color of the medication or how the doctor's office smells. When observational learning, also called modeling, was introduced they found that the placebo effect was greater following verbal cues. Patients that expected that a medication would work seemed to do much better and proved that the placebo effect

Placebos are a medicine or procedure prescribed for the psychological benefit to the patient rather than for any physiological effect within medicine. Placebo drugs have been used in medicine for many years with the first placebo effect investigation being carried out by English Physician John Haygarth in 1979. Since then placebos have been regularly used on patients and now have a very prominent role within medicine. As a result of the regular use of placebos on patients, many arguments against the use have been highlighted due to ethical issues and lack of evidence that they have a significant effect on people. Even though “A 2010 survey of family physicians found that 98% believed in the therapeutic potential of placebo treatments”(Page,2014), there are still many reasons to why placebos should not be used in medicine. This essay will form a balanced argument by considering both the reasons for and against the use of placebos in medicine. I will start by stating the reasons for the use of placebos whilst discussing the positive effects they have had on patients. This will lead on to me deliberating the reasons against the use of placebos by using the ethical issues and lack of significant evidence to support, before concluding by summarising the main arguments.