Quotes About Placebos

What's more, random events can mimic nonrandom ones. Even the most sophisticated scientists can have difficulty telling the difference between a real effect and a random fluke. Randomness can make placebos seem like miracle cures, or harmless compounds appear to be deadly poisons, and can even create subatomic particles out of nothing.

Bearing in mind that homeopathic remedies are generally so diluted that they contain no active remedy, it seems obvious they can be nothing more than placebos.

Placebos can be astonishingly effective, especially for colds, anxiety, depression, pain, and symptoms that are plausibly generated by the mind. Conceivably, endorphins—the small brain proteins with morphinelike effects—can be elicited by belief. A placebo works only if the patient believes it's an effective medicine. Within strict limits, hope, it seems, can be transformed into biochemistry. As

There is a major problem with reliance on placebos, like most vitamins and antioxidants. Everyone gets upset about Big Science, Big Pharma, but they love Big Placebo.

Many traffic signs have become like placebos, giving false comfort to the afflicted, or simple boilerplate to ward off lawsuits, the roadway version of the Kellogg's Pop-Tarts box that says, "Warning: Pastry Filling May Be Hot When Heated.

the Freedom of Information Act and the pharmaceutical companies found that antidepressants, except for the most severely depressed patients, worked no better than placebos or sugar pills (4).

Placebos," Dr. Shapiro has written in the American Journal of Psychotherapy, "can have profound effects on organic illness, including incurable malignancies.