Placebos only work if the people think they’ll work. Funnily enough, it is possible to be aware something is a placebo and still expect it to work, but generally placebos involve some deception where the person thinks they’re receiving real treatment.
So yes, people selling homeopathic remedies are going to claim they’re real treatments, both to convince people to buy them, and because they’ll be most effective if people think they’re real. And the people buying them will also be the people who believe they’re actually effective, causing them to actually have an effect.
Yeah, it would be a fine thing to sell to people, given that:
- they don’t charge ridiculous prices for it, and
- they never claim to be a treatment for any ailment that actually needs real treatment.
but generally placebos involve some deception where the person thinks they’re receiving real treatment.
That’s literally what a placebo is…
Being aware that the placebo effect exists, and even being aware that someone is about to hand you something that may or may not be a placebo still doesn’t effect the chances of a placebo effect.
Like…
Do you think when placebos are used in studies that the patients aren’t aware that they may get an inactive treatment?
They literally have to sign contracts acknowledging that they’re aware of that fact in every medicinal trial…
Why doors such blatantly wrong information keep getting upvoted on Lemmy?
This is far from the first time I’ve seen this happen.
People know that they can get a placebo treatment, but they don’t know if they actually got a placebo or the real treatment. They’re also generally hoping both that they got the real treatment, and that the real treatment will make things better.
Maybe calling it deception isn’t fully accurate, but the the point is that they’re given something they hope is medicine, but in reality it’s the placebo treatment.
Placebos only work if the people think they’ll work. Funnily enough, it is possible to be aware something is a placebo and still expect it to work,
Even if you know that it is a placebo, it still works. https://hms.harvard.edu/news/placebos-work-even-without-deception
I don’t know if you have to believe in the placebo effect for it to have an effect. :)
Homeopathy… do the sugar balls have a better effect if they are very expensive? Who knows.
