Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?
Having worked in the pharma industry, this article is complete bullshit.<p>For double and triple blind (the third blind comes from not even the pharma company  knowing the blinding details until after the trial) placebo design is an extraordinarily complex undertaking. A placebo must match the drug in physical appearance, taste, texture, density, state (liquid/solid/gas), and anticipated side effects. Any material difference in any of these categories renders the trial <i>completely and totally meaningless</i>, because at a minimum it unblinds the doctors on the ground.<p>Pointing out a few random oversights out of the thousands of clinical trials that occur every year is not proof of evil on the part of pharma; it is a testament to the care that goes into their design. It represents a defect rate virtually unmatched in any other industry.<p>But sure, go ahead and advocate irresponsible alarmism over a non-issue, as if though drug trials aren't already expensive enough, retarding scientific progress and costing millions of lives from drugs that would have been otherwise developed.