Placebo

Key Stage 4

Meaning

A placebo is a fake drug given to patients during a clinical trial.

About Placebos

Placebos are used to prevent bias in research caused by people expecting a potential medicine to work or not.

Placebos are known to have a positive effect on many illnesses. To ensure that a new potential medicine is not just a placebo some of the patients are given a placebo so the results can be compared with the potential medicine. If the results of the placebo and the potential medicine are the same, then the potential medicine had no effect.

When administering placebo that patient is unaware whether they are being given the real potential medicine or not. This is known as a Blind Trial. Most trials of potential medicines are Double Blind Trials which means neither the doctor giving the potential medicine nor the patient receiving it will know if they've got the real one or not.