The Placebo Effect

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Hi, I was wondering about the Placebo effect (in case you don’t know what that is):
a beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient’s belief in that treatment.

Many placebo effect treatments involve lying/deceiving the patient by making them think they are taking a medicine of having a surgery. I have often heard that “the ends don’t justify the means.” Since lying/deception is always sinful, is treating patients using the placebo effect moral?

Thanks!
 
If you are enrolled in a clinical trial, they will tell you up front that you will either get a real medicine or a placebo, but you won’t know which one.
Therefore, no lying.
 
Okay, thanks! I guess I didnt really understand placebo treatments.😀
 
They were used in world war two often. ‘Morphine’ was often a glucose solution. Yet soldiers maintained their pain had lessened.

We have placebo sleep medication at home (aka. a syringe of water dipped in jam). Gets the little one off to sleep after a dream. When he understands the definiton of placebo he will be in for a rude shock!
 
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