I’m not getting it. First, it’s a matter of definitions. Hopefully we all agree that “the placebo effect” refers to the effect that patients are more likely to show improvement if they believe they are undergoing a treatment from which they expect positive results, not the non-existant effects caused by the sugar and water in the pill.
This effect confounds studies because the patients who are getting the real drug that is being tested most likely also believe that they are undergoing treatment from which they expect positive results.
But why do you declare it “not real”? If the experimental situation by itself causes 65% of patients to show improvement, then that is the placebo effect, but still 65% of patients show improvement. You’d need to compare that with a control group where patients are sent home to know for sure whether that’s worth it, though.
Next, why are you dragging statistical significance into it? If you can’t show with statistical significance that a drug works better than a placebo, then you still know nothing about whether the drug works. If you are looking for a small effect, such as having 70% of patients get better instead of just 65%, then you need a big study to know if the effect exists.
You can’t just declare the 65% who improved to be “not real” even if they only got better because they were given the feeling that they’re well cared for and about to get better.
They might have value if they outperform the placebo effects for some people. However, to even know if the drug that has any value at all, you have to show that it performs, and that means performing better than nothing, and you have to show that with statistical significance. And you have to do it on the first try - no jelly bean science, please.
I’m sure there are also real drugs that have short-term effects only. You need to do trials or at least analyze data to know that, of course. I assume the relevant studies have already been done and have shown that in the long-term, antidepressants significantly outperform the placebo effect, by a larger margin than in the short-term studies.
Whether the same is true for irritable bowel syndrome, or for gastric ulcers, I don’t know.
So again, this has nothing to do with the reality of the pacebo effect. If the effects are to short-term to be useful, how does that make them “false”?
No. They’re doing it to better understand the placebo effect, which will, if nothing else, help in better designing studies for real drugs. No conspiracy here. Move along.
