Interesting story in the New York Times about a company that's producing placebos for kids.
According to the article: "Jennifer Buettner was taking care of her young niece when the idea struck her. The child had a nagging case of hypochondria, and Ms. Buettner’s mother-in-law, a nurse, instructed her to give the girl a Motrin tablet. She told me it was the most benign thing I could give, Ms. Buettner said. I thought, why give her any drug? Why not give her a placebo?
Studies have repeatedly shown that placebos can produce improvements for many problems like depression, pain and high blood pressure, and Ms. Buettner reasoned that she could harness the placebo effect to help her niece. She sent her husband to the drugstore to buy placebo pills. When he came back empty handed, she said, It was one of those ‘aha!’ moments when everything just clicks.
With the help of her husband, Dennis, she founded a placebo company, and, without a hint of irony, named it Efficacy Brands. Its chewable, cherry-flavored dextrose tablets, Obecalp, for placebo spelled backward, goes on sale on June 1 at the Efficacy Brands Web site. Bottles of 50 tablets will sell for $5.95. The Buettners have plans for a liquid version, too."
Sounds good? Maybe not. Consider the comments of Dr. Howard Brody, a medical ethicist and family physician at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. “Placebos are unpredictable. Each and every time you give a placebo you see a dramatic response among some people and no response in others.”
“The idea that we can use a placebo as a general treatment method,” Dr. Brody said, “strikes me as inappropriate.”
Here’s a link to the complete article:
And here’s my take – will products like Obecap teach children that there’s a pill for every problem? Is that a health care message that we want to teach our children? It also reinforces the general mindset that leads to parents demanding antibiotics for ear-aches. Not the way to go. We need to teach our children wellness.
