Why Randomized Placebo Control Groups Are Necessary In CAM Research

Abstract Employing a placebo control group does not prevent the placebo effect from occurring. The only way to do that is to convince people that the experimental intervention that they are about to receive will not help them or that there is nothing special about it. Using a placebo group doesn’t even tell us how large the placebo effect is in a particular experiment because so many other inferential impediments are operating at the same time. The only way to ascertain the actual size of a placebo effect is to employ a no-treatment control group and to compare its results with those obtained for the placebo group.