Warning: subjective results may cause impotence.

Wired this month has a fascinating article about the problems drug companies are having with the placebo effect.

In particular, the placebo effect in drug trials has been growing *stronger*, which has been causing drug companies all sorts of headaches, as in order to meet FDA approval their drugs need to out perform placebos in double blind trials, which many new drugs are having problems doing. The article mentions that even some widely used anti-depressants of the day might not even pass drug trials right now as modern placebos are reaching equivalent effectiveness.

The only real explanation given for the sudden increase in effect? The FDA's 1997 decision to change how pharmaceutical can market drugs directly to consumers. The idea being that we've been so inundated with the concept that there are pills to fix every inconvenient ailment, that that has somehow amplified our expectations for what a pill might achieve, which *somehow* allows our brain to heal us all the more. The irony of the situation bathes me in eye sparkling glee.

In the article they mention that drug companies have never actually studied the Placebo Effect, rather they treat it like the flamboyant uncle of pharmaceutical science clad in science-proof leather chaps and motorcycle cap of subjectiveness, they ignore and loathe his presence, seeing it as an embarrassing mockery of all they strive to achieve. A thing they wish would just go away, if only because they have no idea what to buy for Christmas.

And thanks to globalization the Placebo Effect has been increasing worldwide. Although there are some interesting geographic discrepancies that vary based on the ailment being tested, or even on the size, number or color of pills being administered.

The Placebo Effect has always been of interest to me, if only because I think it is a perfect example of the one true blind spot that the Scientific Method possesses, the inner point of view. Please don't confuse this for Science-Hatin'. I'll be the first to come out swinging my Mr Wizard lunchbox to defend Science from it's wild-eye'd detractors, but that doesn't mean I also believe it to be a singularly complete tool.

The end of the article talks about a man who is finally doing a proper study of it, and rather than treating it as the bane of drug companies, is asking what things effect it? His studies involve variations on the "medicinal ritual" of administering the various sugar pills, and measuring the resulting effectiveness. Which is an open-mindedness to a result that I applaud.

One detail of the story buried in a seeming side note was how they were doing some research into possibly being able to *block* the brain from creating a placebo effect in the first place, in the interest of creating the "perfect drug trial" conditions. What is not mentioned is the reverse concept, of making a pill specifically designed to trigger those areas. Such a wonder pill could potentially be prescribed to anyone, for any condition that you need not even believe in to work, or at least, that is what their commercials will claim...