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Why Most Sugar Pills Are Not Placebos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Bennett Holman
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Abstract

The standard philosophical definition of placebos offered by Grünbaum is incompatible with Cartwright’s conception of randomized clinical trials. I offer a modified account of placebos that respects this role and clarifies why many current medical trials fail to warrant the conclusions they are typically seen as yielding. I then consider recent changes to guidelines for reporting medical trials and show that pessimism over parsing out the cause of “unblinding” is premature. Specifically, using a trial of antidepressants, I show how more sophisticated statistical analyses can parse out the source of such effects and serve as an alternative to placebo control.

Type
Medicine
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 1330 - 1343
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

In memory and appreciation of my father, who encouraged my pursuit of philosophy even when he didn’t understand it and who read no fewer than seven versions of this paper, never failing to find a way to make it better. Any remaining errors are his fault.

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