A Review and Analysis of Placebo Treatments, Placebo Effects, and Placebo Controls in Trials of Medical Procedures When Sham Is Not Inert

Researchers examining the efficacy of medical procedures make assumptions about the nature of placebo. From these assumptions they select the sham interventions to be used in their trials. However, placebo is not well defined. A number of definitions are contradictory and sometimes misleading. This leads to problems in sham-controlled studies of medical procedures and difficulties interpreting their results. The author explores some of the …