Article June 24, 1961 Issue

Signs of the Times

[Note first editorial in this issue, pp. 1073-1075.]

United Press International

From an article by the United Press International

The big block to progress in drug research are the very human beings for whom drugs are designed. [The human reaction] has become scientifically notorious as "the placebo effect." In medical jargon, a placebo is any inert substance up to and including water, which is solemnly and deceptively prescribed as medicine in order to please the patient.

In testing new drugs you take a large number of the persons suffering from the disease which the drug is designed to help, and you divide them up 50-50. One of the halves is given the drug. The other half gets the placebo which shouldn't have any effect whatever. . . . Inevitably a number of the persons getting the placebo will get as much benefit from it as the person who gets the most good from the really potent drug. They'll even have the same side effects, and a few may be more distressed by them than the worst reactor to the drug. What has happened is a spectacular triumph of mind over matter. . . .

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