Using Placebos for Treatment of Diseases

PSY-470 Abnormal Psychology

8th March, 2012

Ian, Ross and Steven (2005) define placebos as substances with no pharmacological properties. On the hand, the placebo effect is defined as the effect of a positive expectation. Placebos are used as a control in experiments to test the effects of medicines. The efficacy of placebos in the treatment of various diseases has been tested in several studies. For instance, according to Ian, Ross and Steven (2005) placebos have been found to be effective against depression, psychiatric illnesses, pain, high blood pressure, asthma and cough. Despite their efficacy, scientists have not yet discovered their pathways and the mechanisms of their action. This paper discusses more about placebos in reference to an article that was written by Brown titled “The Placebo Effect” (1998).

This article is realistic because it offers us solutions that are workable. This article by Brown (1998) gives us new insight on the effectiveness of placebos and how they can be incorporated in modern medicine. However, there are a number of limitations that have to be addressed in order for the placebos to become an alternative of treatment to conventional medicine. As it stands now and as Brown (1998) admits in this article, placebos pose several ethical and legal issues. This is because American Medical Association and the state laws require patients to be furnished with adequate information on proposed treatments so that they can be able to make informed decisions on whether to consent or to refuse. This requirement significantly undermines the placebo effect because if patients are told they are going to receive dummy pills they are unlikely to respond to the treatment. In this article Brown (1998) offers a suggestion that is likely to encourage patients to opt for placebo without breaching the law. One suggestion is that a physician should divulge to the patients all the information about the benefits of placebos and their effectiveness but should not inform them that they are inactive substances.

Although the article suggests that the patients should be informed about the side effects of the placebos before they are administered, it fails to point at the fact that there is a little research that has been conducted on their nocebos (negative effects). The article also the raises the question on whether placebos will ever become acceptable considering the fact that they have been found to counteract the effect of real medicine. In some instances, placebos have also been found to put the patient at a greater risk compared to the real medicine. Such issues need to be settled first and most important of all it is necessary to first of all discover how the placebo’s interacts with a patient’s body in order to enhance its safety. That is not all- placebos are likely to be stigmatized due to their perceived in-authenticity and more so, because it threatens the livelihood of the same people who are charged with the responsibility of ensuring it is successfully incorporated into the contemporary medicine and these are the doctors.

Brown article’s article also raises an important question- if the placebo is used to supplement or replace contemporary medicine will its efficacy be lost? This sounds obvious to me because patients will of course realize that they are being given inactive substances deliberately by the physicians. This leaves us with two options- instead of incorporating placebos in mainstream medicine the art should be left to spiritual healers to guard the reputation of conventional medicine. Secondly, physicians should only prescribe placebos when patient’s best interest might be served by using the placebo. According to Lee (2009) this is already happening as half of doctors in United States have admitted having used placebos to improve the conditions of their patients. This means that placebos are already being used but they are yet to be recognized the law. If the placebos are to be recognized by law then the field of psychology would be one of the major beneficiaries. This is because placebos have been found to treat a range of psychiatric disorders such as depression.

References

Brown, W. (1998). The placebo effect. Scientific American 278, 90- 95

Ian, S., Ross, F. & Steven, R. (2005) All in the mind. New Scientist, 188, 12

Lee, J. (2009). Sometimes a placebo is the way to go. Medical economics, 86(12), 26