placebo

The study, which began last week and will run into 2028, has enrolled 450 overweight people and will test two low doses of the pill compared to a placebo.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

A third study followed approximately 600 of the original 1,000 participants who had been assigned either digoxin or placebo.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026

Compared with their performance after receiving the placebo, they made substantially larger errors when attempting to reach their destinations.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026

Panelists who voted no said the lack of a placebo meant the trial didn’t meet their bar, whatever the drug’s apparent benefit.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

Modern trials of the efficacy of therapies depend on the idea that an effective therapy must perform better than a placebo.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

The U-turns mark a broader retreat from demands, pushed under former FDA vaccines and biotech drugs division leader Vinay Prasad, that rare-disease drugmakers test their experimental medicines against placebos to make sure the drugs work.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026

These sessions used an "open-label placebo" approach, meaning participants were aware that some practices were presented as placebos.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 7, 2026

It was seen as not only socially acceptable but humane to prescribe placebos.

From Slate ● Jan. 30, 2026

While studies showed that Sarepta’s Amondys 45 and Vyondys 53 treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy worked better than placebos, the company said the results did not reach statistical significance.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 3, 2025

If placebo effects were this good, they should just make placebos the way to treat depression—maybe that’s what they did; maybe Zoloft was cornstarch.

From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini