Did you catch this story and its offshoots, based on a BMJ article, that half of doctors in the U.S. give patients pointless drugs to make them feel better? You can be upset and go off muttering about those stupid doctors -- or you could think about it.
A placebo, by definition, is something with no therapeutic value for a person. It could even be, for example, an antibiotic, but that's useless to you unless you have an infection.
Doctors prescribe placebos -- pain killers, vitamins, antibiotics and other no- or low-harm drugs, doses so low they couldn't possibly have a noticeable effect -- knowing the won't chemically cure anything. But sometimes they cure things anyway.
Why? Our bodies might not be as smart as we think they are -- usually the brain takes the cake. Using the power of suggestion, taking a pill -- even a pill that can't work biologically -- can trick the mind into thinking something's going on to cure our sickness or relieve our symptoms. And interestingly, our mind often believes it!
The ethical issue in the recent news is that doctors aren't telling their patients that what they're giving them is a placebo. Yes, I certainly see that.
But at the same time, results are results. If I come in with nasty headaches and leave with a pill that makes them go away, who am I to complain if they end up to be vitamin B supplements? And if my doctor had explicitly told me that I was just getting a pill for the sake of getting a pill that in and of itself, probably wouldn't do anything, maybe it wouldn't.
But if it were a painkiller, or a sedative, or a pointless antibiotic, would I want it in my body unnecessarily? Without knowing it's all a big mind game?
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