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Let’s say a new drug appears to be effective in combating a condition like chronic anxiety and is the subject of popular news stories. When the drug enters clinical trials, patients who take the drug report significantly less anxiety. But so do patients who were given sugar pills. Because FDA regulations require that any proposed drug perform significantly better than a placebo, the drug isn’t approved, and the pharmaceutical company developing the drug must swallow millions in research expenses. The regulations make some sense: Why approve a new drug with potential side effects when a placebo works just as well?

This is the primary misconception about placebos: that the placebo itself is somehow “working” to treat a medical condition. You can see it even in the headline for an otherwise well-crafted article that appeared in Wired last August: “Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.” As internist and medical professor Peter Lipson noted on the Scien