Tic-Tacs, Tylenol...What's the Difference?
Um...yikes.
I'm kinda torn here. On the one side doctors are giving people prescriptions that, medically speaking, aren't designed to cure the ailments these patients are describing. On the other hand, it's quite possible that many of the ailments are just in their head. But shouldn't someone else be making that determination?
I'd be a little more pissed off about this if I thought the doctors were deliberately doing this for cash. But seeing that they did a survey where they owned up to giving out placebos, it's hard to make that case.
If your doctor has prescribed antibiotics for the flu or told you to try B12 vitamins for fatigue, those treatments were probably a placebo -- an unproven therapy offered with the hope you'd feel better if you took something.
Treatment with placebos is far more common than you might think, according to a new national survey in which 46 to 58 percent of U.S. physicians admitted using placebos regularly. Only 5 percent said they tell patients explicitly that they are doing so.
The results trouble medical ethicists, who say more research is needed to determine whether doctors must deceive patients in order for placebos to work.
The survey was sent to 1,200 internists and rheumatologists nationwide; 679 responded. In answering three questions as part of the larger survey, about half reported recommending placebos regularly. Surveys in Denmark, Israel, Britain, Sweden and New Zealand have found like results.
I'm kinda torn here. On the one side doctors are giving people prescriptions that, medically speaking, aren't designed to cure the ailments these patients are describing. On the other hand, it's quite possible that many of the ailments are just in their head. But shouldn't someone else be making that determination?
I'd be a little more pissed off about this if I thought the doctors were deliberately doing this for cash. But seeing that they did a survey where they owned up to giving out placebos, it's hard to make that case.
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