The Placebo Effect: Defendable Deception?

Buddha once said, “The mind is everything. What you think, you become.” The human brain possesses abilities and powers far beyond what one could ever imagine. Throughout the years, various studies have proven the brain’s capability to heal the body in a phenomenon known as the placebo effect. In short, this effect occurs when a doctor prescribes faux pills or gives fake operations to his patient, and the patient still recovers because of the immense power of the mind. Though employing the placebo effect means a doctor deceives his patient, this practice encounters much success; therefore, it should be allowed.

In the medical world, a stark difference between placebos and the term “placebo effect” exists. Substances, like sugar pills or fake injections, which have no medicinal effect, bear the name “pure placebos” (Saljoughian). “Impure placebos,” on the other hand, do elicit an effect for some illnesses, but not necessarily the illness for which the doctors prescribe them, for example: vitamins and antibiotics, which have a medicinal purpose (De Craen). When doctors use the terminology the placebo effect, they refer to “patient’s response to a treatment that is attributable to some reason other than the treatment’s pharmacologic effect,” (Niemi). In order to provoke the placebo effect, a doctor prescribes either a pure or impure placebo, without telling the patient. These different definitions hold significance because of the diversity of their meanings.

Widely used throughout history, placebos date as far back as Greek and Roman physicians (Saljoughian). The well-known Greek doctor Hippocrates stated that “many patients… have taken a turn for the worse…by the declaration… of what is present,” thus implying that placebos are accep...

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