If we give half the patients a placebo, then what do you give the control group?
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The control gets nothing.
Drug, sugar pill, nothing.
Drug has effect, sugar pill has effect, nothing has no effect.
If the drug’s effect is less than placebo, it’s worse than sugar. We test drugs against sugar pills precisely because they do something that giving them nothing does not (though there are no-ceboes but that’s not your question.)
We know placebos have an effect because they’re part of every double blind study.
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