Wired had an article a couple weeks ago* on studies showing that the placebo effect is more effective now than it used to be. It seems that while the big US drug companies thought they were just fleecing customers with massive ad campaigns ever since the FDA allowed direct advertising in 1997, they were actually healing them! That’s the theory being advanced in the article, at least. Interestingly enough, it points in the direction of drugs being assisted by holistic care–not in the odd pseudo-sciencey way the term is often used, but using the real definition and viewing the entire human body as an interdependent system rather than relying only on precisely targeted drugs and therapies.
*In unrelated news, Slashdot appears to have missed the 60-second news cycle memo.
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