hmm. The NYT explains it a little bit better.
- medical ethicists[...] say more research is needed to determine whether doctors must deceive patients in order for placebos to work.
- the survey found [...] 5 percent described the treatment to patients as "a placebo."
- "In the clinical setting, the use of a placebo without the patient's knowledge may undermine trust" according to the AMA.
- [According to one expert] "Doctors should resist using placebos, because they reinforce the deleterious notion that 'when something is the matter with you, you will not get better unless you swallow pills.' "
So a doctor might hand you a sugar pill and says, "This is a placebo. It might make you feel better, because—as I'm sure you know—sometimes placebos make you feel better."
Number 3 above even suggests that a known-to-be-effective treatment might not work, in a sort of "reverse placebo" way, if patients suspect that they've been given a placebo. I think. That'd be, um, neato.
Number 4 is so exactly what I wanted to hear that I can't help but feel I'm being fed a line of shit. Only when I'm being placated and manipulated does something sound so true. Thanks, NYT, for that spoon full of sugar.