Take One Of These & Call Me In The Morning

By Dan Rattiner

I read an interesting story in the New York Times the other day. A woman has gone into business selling bottles of little white placebo pills. She thought of this when her 5-year-old daughter complained of feeling a little achy and tired and she thought to help her by giving her, well, she doesn't like to give medicine, so, a placebo pill.

She'd read about them. We've all read about them. They do work. So she sent her husband down to the drugstore to get a bottle of them. But he came back without any. They don't sell them. It was an "aha" moment. Why not go into business selling placebos?

So that is what she's done. She has investors, she has a manufacturer, she has a label, and you can buy little white Obecalp pills (Placebo spelled backwards) not at drug stores, where everything is regulated by the Federal Drug Administration, but at convenience stores and at Sam's Clubs and so forth.

What struck me about this article was that, instead of just being a little article in the Times, it went on and on, for two full columns, first on one page and then continuing onto another. And why it did that was because of a bargain that freelance journalists make with publications and a rule of journalism that the reporter of this story did not break. I thought it was of interest.

The bargain is that freelancers at large newspapers and magazines are generally paid by the word. At the New York Times, this can add up to a lot.

The rule the reporter kept is that if you have a story like this, it's important to get an opinion or two or three about it from some authority to say what they thought of it. But if you call three, and they say the same thing, the rule is the editor will cut two. No repeats, please.

In this case, the reporter got opinions from 13 different experts and every single one of them was different from every other. So the editor was stuck. And he felt obliged not to cut the story.

Here are the 13 different opinions opined by 13 different sources. I thought the writer was quite ingenious getting all of these. He also got the big bucks.

"The idea that we can use a placebo as a general treatment method strikes me as inappropriate," said Dr. Howard Brody, of the University of Texas. "Each and every time you give a placebo, you see a dramatic response among some people and no response in others."

"I can't think of a single instance where I'd want to give a child a placebo," said another expert.

"For this to work really well as a placebo, you cannot let the parents know that this is a sugar pill. You have to lie to the parents, too, if you expect them to fool their kids," said Dr. Brody.

Ms. Jennifer Buettner, who founded the company, said there was some truth to that, but actually, "You'll know when Obecalp is necessary."

"Even when we told both the children and their parents that these pills were placebos, our study showed the placebos were effective," said Gail Geller, of Johns Hopkins.

"Kids could grow up thinking that the only way to get better is by taking a pill," said Dr. Brody.

Another said, "They might not learn that some things, such as a scraped knee or a cold, can improve on its own."

"They used to sell candied cigarettes to kids to get them used to the idea of playing with cigarettes," said Dr. David Spiegal, at Stanford.

"Anybody who has ever been up in the middle of the night with a crying child would be tempted to try something like this. You're so desperate for anything that could quiet down your poor, miserable kid," said Dr. Brody

"The overprescription of drugs is a serious problem and I think there needs to be some alternative," said Henry Schlecter, of NYU.

"I don't like the idea of parents lying to their kids," said Dr. Steven Joffe, at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. "It makes me squeamish."

"I don't have a problem with the thoughtful use of placebos. The starting premise and your own belief about what you are doing matters a lot," said the head of the AMA.

"Kiss it and make it better is the placebo that children really yearn for," said a family psychiatrist in Toledo.

And that is as far as this now rich freelance writer got.

But I have some questions.

Is it possible to become ADDICTED to placebos?

How about overdosing on placebos?

If two placebos once a day doesn't do it, should you go to two twice a day? Do you call a herbologist for this advice? Perhaps your grocer?

If placebos don't help, can you file a lawsuit?

And if you file a lawsuit, will you be countered with a lawsuit saying this is frivolous because that is what they are SUPPOSED to do?

Where do you look on a bottle of placebos for an expiration date?

What are the reported side effects from taking a placebo?

Is feeling better a side effect?

I've got a headache thinking about all of this. What the hell?

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