peter green wrote:

> but what about when you go beyond the study? how do you propose to use
> placebos in the normal medical world without lieing to patients?

The placebo effect means basically that scientist have observed that
certain effects thought to be caused only by a certain drug can be caused
by "nothing more" than the person believing (or thinking, or whatever -- in
any case not by the drug). And this possibly without many of the side
effects of the actual drug (say, a diarrhea because the drug upsets the
stomach before it gets into the blood and does its thing).  

Studying this effect and learning to be able to cause it directly without
the placebo workaround, say by "only" believing, sounds to me like a very
worthy proposition. Obviously this is different for a drug company... The
patients would avoid the side effects, the drug company would stop making
money. That's where the two groups have different goals.

I don't see where lying comes in here, or where there is a tricky moral
situation. 

Conversely, one could see a tricky moral situation (that we have come to
accept) in suggesting a medication where the possible side effects may be
so strong that they can be worse, and in some cases much worse, than the
original problem. 

Gerhard

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