Recent News Stories State Doctors Prescribing Placebos to Patients. I Tried Searching for Which Medicines.?
Question by Joan S: Recent news stories state doctors prescribing placebos to patients. I tried searching for which medicines.?
I found out clinical trials use placebos that LOOK like real pills, obtained directly from the drug companies. What medicines are suspect as being placebos? Are prescriptions written a certain way to indicate to the pharmacy to use a placebo instead of the real medicines? A medicine I used several years ago doesn’t seem to have the same effect. If I change pharmacies, will I get something different?
How do I find out the medicine I am taking now is real and not a placebo? I would like to know what medicines are the doctors giving placebos?
Best answer:
Answer by hecla 1
that is not what is happening……a placebo is a medication that the Dr will know does not have a therapeutic effect…..pain pills in that particular study were considered to be a placebo, it does not HELP the problem, only mask the symptoms. Vitamins were another thing that the Dr’s would prescribe, these were also considered placebos. (although I believe many disease processes are helped by nutrients, vitamins, minerals and supplements). The Dr’s involved in this study were internists and rheumotologists.
These people were not given “false” medications such as sugar pills, just things that were typically not drugs used to treat a condition….for example, instead of giving someone say interferon for MS, they were given B-12 injections instead, the patients were not lied to about what they were getting, but the Dr’s did not believe these treatments to be “mainstream” for the problems. I think like 1% said they gave sugar pills or saline injections to their patients. A pharmacy would not fill a placebo prescription without letting the patient know what they were getting, it is against the law….it is fraud in terms of insurance companies paying for meds patients did not receive, Dr’s who dispense medications could do it because they can charge for office visit and not drugs.
Answer by Doctor J
Hi Joan. I have a copy of the research study. It was published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ). You can find it on their website.
The study states the following about the types of “placebos” the doctors they interviewed were using: “Few reported using saline (3%) or sugar pills (2%) as placebo treatments, while large proportions reported using over the counter analgesics (13%) and vitamins (38%) as placebo treatments within the past year. A small but notable proportion of physicians reported using antibiotics (13%) and sedatives (13%) as placebo treatments during the same period.”
I consider these practices unethical and possibly malpractice (inappropriate use of antibiotics, sedatives and OTC analgesics can cause great harm!). This study’s findings are a sorry reflection on the standards of care of some physicians.
Best wishes to you.
p.s. as for the writers who think this is NOT a significant issue, I suggest you go to the website and read the paper for yourself. And, I repeat, Analgesics (even Tylenol), Sedatives, and Antibiotics are DANGEROUS drugs (see the PDR) and should never be used as a “placebo”.
Lastly, the quote I listed above is directly from the published research paper. The researchers wrote this conclusion: “Physicians might not be fully transparent with their patients about the use of placebos and might have MIXED MOTIVATIONS for recommending such treatments.”
Please note: the researchers who wrote this paper are associated with the Dept. of Bioethics, National Institues of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
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