Half of US Doctors Routinely Prescribe Placebos

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/health/24placebo.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

by theoneill • 18 years ago

19 35 18 years ago

nytimes.com

ivankirigin2• 18 years ago

This idea is related and hilarious http://inventedbyamother.com/

streety• 18 years ago

Does it have FDA approval?

ivankirigin2• 18 years ago

I'm not sure about the details. I would imagine because it contains no narcotics, it wouldn't be necessary to test responses. But considering how fucked the FDA approval process is, my intuition doesn't mean much.

jwilliams2• 18 years ago

Even better. It doesn't have FDA disapproval.

jbum• 18 years ago

...and the ones that don't are doing their patients a disservice. Placebos are safe, and can be surprisingly effective.

jwilliams2• 18 years ago

More people should demand placebos from their doctor...

cough Anyway. I found this line from the article amusing: Only 5 percent described the treatment to patients as “a placebo.”

dejb• 18 years ago

Yes so did I. To me it means the title of the article was speculative at best. Inaccurate is another word one could use.

mattjaynes• 18 years ago

Great point. Radiolab had a great episode on the placebo effect and how powerful it can be. It's a great listen if you have time:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/05/18

gruseom2• 18 years ago

"Antibiotics and sedatives" don't sound like placebos to me.

mechanical_fish4• 18 years ago

Tragically, antibiotics are often used as a placebo. For example, prescribing an antibiotic is a good way to get the flu patient to leave your office in a happy mood, secure in the knowledge that Something Is Being Done, even though antibiotics are useless against flu.

That's a big problem, because sugar pills don't breed antibiotic-resistant bacteria. There's a serious argument to be made for homeopathy here: homeopathic treatments don't have side effects.

LogicHoleFlaw• 18 years ago

homeopathic treatments don't have side effects.

Indeed. Most of us could stand to drink more water anyways.

marvin• 18 years ago

"Prescribing" homeopatic treatments in mock cases instead of real drugs is actually an incredibly neat idea. I can't believe the doctors didn't already think of it. It makes everyone happy. (Except sometime down the road, when someone attempts to heal something serious with homeopatic medicine...but I suppose that is already a problem.)

dhbradshaw• 18 years ago

Sounds like a needed service: we need something that the doctors can prescribe and get from a pharmacist that actually is a harmless placebo instead of antibiotics. Maybe it can go under many different technical sounding names.

yummyfajitas• 18 years ago

Indeed, all sorts of faith healing (homeopathy, Jesus-powered medicine, crystal energies, etc) would be useful in this regard. Faith healing has the advantages of being cheap and free of side effects. Medicine has the advantage that it sometimes works.

For the cases when medicine doesn't work, faith healing wins. It's cheaper, and equally effective. Of course, it will never happen, due to irrational faith in doctors.

Robin Hanson is an interesting read on this topic.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/faith-in-docs.html

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/05/rand_health_ins.html

iamelgringo2• 18 years ago

I see this all the time. (I'm an ER nurse by night, computer nerd by day).

The problem is that patients frequently demand antibiotics for infections that don't require them and patients demand XRays for injuries that are obviously not fractures.

If someone is going to take little Jonny to the ER at 3 in the morning because the child has a fever and a cough, the last thing that the parents want to hear is "give him Tylenol, push fluids, plenty of rest..." Plain and simple, if they're going through the trouble to see the doctor, they want a prescription. So, instead of spending 20 minutes explaining to the parents why little Jonny doesn't need a prescription, they spend 5 minutes with them, prescribe an antibiotic that they _might_ but probably don't need, and run off to see the next patient.

Angostura• 18 years ago

Err, excuse me. I've taken my daughter to A&E (the UK equivalent of ER) a couple of time in her life due to high fever and a very nasty hacking cough. On both occassions, they prescribed ibuprofen, liquids and on one occassion put her in a cooling bath to reduce temperature.

On both occassions I was satisfied: I was pretty sure that it was a viral infection, but with a temperature that high, I wanted to be sure. I would be bloody annoyed if the docs prescribed unnecessary antibiotics. Not all patients are dense and doctors shouldn't treat us as if we are - that just spreads ignorance.

Actually, we are lucky over here now. NHS is a really very good phone consulting service. You phone up with a sick child and they take you through a very VERY detailed list of symptoms and questions. This phone service has saved me a couple of night trips to the hospital since it started.

iamelgringo2• 18 years ago

I'm sorry if I came across as condescending. That was not my intention at all. I went to an Urgent Care 2 years ago, I waited for 2 hours, only to be told that I should take Tylenol, get rest and drink fluids. I was very upset.

I don't think those expectations are the fault of the patient. It's a natural extension of our drive-thru, fast-food.

At very least, I've found those expectations to be common in most of the 20+ hospitals/ER's that I've worked in over the past 15 years.

I field at least 3-4 calls a night asking for advice. I am not allowed to give any advice over the phone because of liability reasons. People's only option in the middle of the night is to go to the ER and wait their turn which creates frustration and high expectations. It's a bad system, not bad patients.

bprater• 18 years ago

Whenever I get a new prescription from a doctor, I jump online and do my research about it.

I know there are several brand names for placebo drugs, but would it be obvious if a doctor prescribed one to me or my family?

Raphael• 18 years ago

Afraid it might work?

wumi• 18 years ago

when I had bronchitis, my doctor told me "I can give you antibiotics and it will go away in three weeks. You can go without antibiotics and it will still go away in three weeks. What do you want to do?"

I declined.

Half of US Doctors Routinely Prescribe Placebos

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