***Placebos***

[NautyOne]

I just saw something on the news that 30% of doctors regularly prescribe them?????  or 30% of prescriptions are placebo's .........Does anyone know about this??  I think that's insane.  and who is in the placebo business?  

dang it!!

nauty...............

[bubbles1096]

The power of the mind is amazing.

Prescribing placebos is common practice. It's mostly done during thesting phases, to confirm side effects and test reliability of the actual drug itself, but there are a handful of docs that will prescribe placebos to certain patients for certain ailments, esp. pills that could lead to an addiction.

[owhatamistake]

You are so right, Late. This has actually been going on for decades.  In my family there are generations of Drs and they did this....placebos for colds, viruses, etc....then a list of things to do that would really help fight a cold or whatever.  They didn't charge for those pills....just handed them out and said to take them and they would get better.  Funny thing is the patients would come back and say they felt SO much better because of the medicine the Dr gave them.  They had different color pills, all placebos (which they called sugar pills), for different complaints.  I always found it interesting to hear about this and consider the power of the mind.  I'd like to see the report that aired.

[LateAugust]

I think  this was a special that was aired on CNN?  I did watch it, just uncertain of which news channel.  Quite honestly it made absolute sense to me why docs are precribing placebo's   for the examples that were shared in this program.  For me, it was another scenario of the "instant gratification" mentality  of our current society.   i.e. I have a cold, give me a pill to make my sniffles go away,  altho it is a virus and cannot be treated by antibiotics.  For too many yrs  docs didn't want to listen to the patients complain and wrote the script for antibiotics,  and unfortunatley too many adults are now immune from the true benefits of the drug and we have these "super bugs"  that are extremely dificult  to medically treat.  Good thread Nauty,  I hope others will have a chance to see this program,  as a baby boomer and the daughter of an elderly parent, it certainly nailed those issues (of over or under prescribing to the elderly)  to a tee.  And there are a lot of us out there!   Thanks for sharing!

[Mandapanda17]

WOW, just read this post.. I sure wish my Xanax would HAVE been placebos....lol.. seriously! Crazy stuff though, kinda makes you wonder whats really going on..

[avisg]

This came from time magazines

In a study published this week in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, a student-and-professor team at the University of Chicago surveyed 466 faculty physicians at Chicago-area medical schools. Almost half of the 231 respondents — 45% — said they had prescribed placebos in regular clinical practice and, of those, just over half had prescribed them in the previous year. Among the reasons the doctors gave: to calm a patient down, to respond to demands for medication that the doctor felt was unnecessary, or simply to do something after all other clinical treatment options had failed.

It's fair to believe that most prescribing doctors felt they were doing the right thing. Of all the physicians surveyed — whether or not they had prescribed placebos — 96% believed that dummy pills could have real therapeutic effects. But does that make it acceptable to administer them? If placebos work by manipulating a patients expectations, then prescribing them suggests that doctors are deliberately deceiving their patients. That undermines one of the key principles of Western medical ethics: informed consent. Most patients believe they have the right to know — and in most cases to refuse — the treatments that doctors recommend.

A few of the article's I just saw said up to 50%   I am still not going to worry about it until I get something that doesnt work

[avisg]

I doubt they getting away with anything .Where did your information come from? I am sure 30 % of people are given placebos when the meds are still in the testing phases .I would not worry about it unless you have concrete information that it is happening .

[NautyOne]

I  am serious you guys....and Mary......very good point. How can they get away with this....okay I just saw it again and it is 30% of prescriptions are bogus.......wow!!

Does that not bother anyone?  How can a doctor make that judgment?  oh well oiy!

nauty........

[nuredshuz]

oh Sh!t no wonder my medicine doesnt work anymore!!! jk~

[allaboutmary]

Better not be with the cost of perscriptions these days. lol