EiR Blog
A Blog For Those Affected By Environmental And Invisible Illnesses Written By Fellow Survivors
Subscribe to this list via RSS
Blog posts tagged in placebo
24
Oct
1
Placebo pills for fibromyalgia and other hard to treat conditions
An article on WebMD this week addressed a very interesting issue. Should doctors give patients placebo (non-active) pills in any circumstances. It turns out this is a surprisingly common practice when doctors are faced with poorly understood chronic conditions such as fibromyalgia.
A recent survey revealed that more than half of doctors give out fake prescriptions to patients and that the majority of doctors feel this practice is OK.
Scientists questionned 679 internists and rheumatologists; doctors working in specialties where they often see patients with chronic illnesses or chronic pain syndromes including fibromyalgia that are difficult, and in many cases imposible, to cure.
It was revealed that doctors find that placebos often provide significant benefit to such patients. The placebo effect is something that has been known of for a long time and is in fact an integral part of scientific research. It is central to the gold standard of medical...
Continue reading
Recent Comments
-
Show all comments
-
As for diabetes and life threatening illnesses, it is not suitable to give a placebo. And the docs won't give a placebo because li
-
To be honest, I agree completely with a doctor giving out a placebo. For the simple fact, if there is any chance a patient truly d
-
This smacks of the salem witch trials. Guilty until proven innocent. Flawed weighted and often inadequate research, competitive an