The study widely reported this week that new antidepressants were no better than placebo led the media to find people who would say on TV that they believed their antidepressants were working.
Well, of course ... on the one hand that's precisely the placebo effect in action. If you believe the pill is making you better, you get a little better. On the other hand, it's also variation in the population. Some people do benefit from the antidepressant more than the placebo. Just because the treatment is no more effective than placebo on average doesn't mean there aren't people who benefit more from the treatment. The trouble is that it's a little hard to identify who those people are, since you can't be taking both antidepressants and placebos at the same time.
Posted by eroberts at March 1, 2008 5:23 AM