"Placebos Are Getting More Effective"

I suppose that perhaps this article would make sense in the Science forum too, but given how much we discuss the placebo affect here regarding alt med, I prefer to post this here.

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all

Among the interesting findings reported: Not only are many new drugs failing to do better than placebos in clinical trials, but some drugs which once passed that hurdle, when retested now, are having a harder time doing so.

Before some woo comes along and tries to claim this is evidence of growing spiritual awareness or "firing the grid" or Crystal Children or whatnot, it's really more about changes in the way clinical studies are being done, and with whom they are being done where, often helping to boost the placebo effect to a higher level, making mere placebos stiffer competition for would-be new drugs.

I also ran across an interesting new (for me) word: "nocebo". I've been aware of the concept before -- a sham treatment with a psychosomatic negative rather than positive effect -- but I hadn't heard this word for it before.

The woos absolutely lapped this up - there was a thread in Health as well as one in woo-land.

I guess it was inevitable, however. Of course all the stuff about limits of the placebo effect doesn't seem to sink in -- and perhaps there will be no limits once the Sapphire Children or Leaded Crystal Children or whatever else is coming next arrive to guide us further along The Path. :eyes:

I effing flamed everyone...EVERY FUCKING COMMENT WAS SCIENTIFICALLY INACCURATE...GAAAAAAAAH! :banghead: Sometimes I wonder how people can get jobs in the real world with such poor reading/comphrehension skills...:banghead:

I wasn't sure what the author was getting at. It's impossible for placebos to get get stronger. So is it that stronger experimental design and improved statistical techniques are resulting in identifying more tested drugs as clinically ineffectual? Or do test subjects have higher expectations for efficacy of medications these days so are showing a greater placebo response? The first is a statistical artifact, the second is a psychological artifact. Either way, I haven't a clue after reading that article.