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Use of placebo treatments in clinical practice is ethically controversial. Opponents argue that using placebos entails deception and therefore violates informed consent. Proponents argue that placebos can be effective treatments for a variety of illnesses. Yet, little is known about how U.S. physicians view placebo treatments and how commonly they use them. In this cross-sectional survey, investigators asked randomly selected U.S. internists and rheumatologists about prescribing of placebo, defined by the authors as a treatment whose benefits derive from positive patient expectations and not from the physiological mechanism of the treatment itself; 679 physicians responded (response rate, 57%).
When asked about the appropriateness of recomme…