The American Medical Association created a policy concerning placebos that states that "physicians may use placebos for diagnosis or treatment only if the patient is informed of and agrees to its use."

• Generally, doctors who prescribe placebos say that they have something they believe may help, but they don't know exactly how it will work. They don't believe they are lying to the patient, because the patient could still benefit from the placebo effect.
• Another problem in prescribing placebos is that they have been shown to only work on half the population. The placebo effect is also short-term - it doesn't work for chronic conditions.
• Prescribing drugs such as sedatives and antibiotics as placebos could do more harm than good. Many sedatives are habit-forming, and prescribing antibiotics may contribute to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Placebos are often used in clinical drug trials to determine how well a potential medicine will work.

• There are two different groups of subjects in a placebo-controlled trial - one receives the experimental drug and the other the placebo. Neither researchers nor subjects know which ...