Honest placebos

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 ...

If you are looking at a clinical trial, a psychology study, or an animal study, it must be a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study.

• Randomized: The participants in the study are randomly placed into the experimental group and the compari...

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 th...