Whatever I'm dropping in this thread it won't be my ability to read and to understand the implications of the small print in the methods section of articles.

(1) The placebo effect works great in animals and small children as long as the caretakers and/or evaluators are led to believe that a real treatment is given. When the caretakers/handlers/evaluators are blinded (don't know which treatment is given to the child/animal) there is no placebo effect in animals or small children to speak of as far as I know. I'd be extremely grateful if someone could point me to an article in which what I have written here has been found wrong.

(2) The placebo/nocebo effect is real but far from understood. It is, however, difficult to use. Imagine you tell someone "I'm givin you a placebo now and hope you support that treatment with belief and positive feelings". You'll find close to no placebo effect with that information. Even in a group who is told that they either get a medication or a placebo but that neither they nor the doctor will be told the placebo effect is much smaller than usual.

(3) There is a very interesting variant of placebo studies not well known outside of science. You give them the treatment (whatever it is) but tell them they are in the placebo control group and only get a sugar pill. If now the effect is just as large as in a treatment group who are informed that they are in the treatment group you know that for this particular treatment there is no placebo to speak of. If the effect in a real placebo group (they get a placebo but are told it is a treatment) is weaker than in the get-the-treatment-but-being-told-it-is-a-placebo group we know that for this treatment there is more than a placebo effect to account for. Too few treatments in medicine show an effect that is larger than that of a placebo control group. So in many cases 'wait and hope' is not only the cheapest advice but there is no better yet.

(4) As for the treatments Clinton has listed I know of not the slightest evidence that the effect is larger for the treatment group than for the placebo control group, though of course the effect is often found to be larger for the placebo control group than, e.g. for a do-nothing-about-it group or a wait-list control (though of course the size of the effect depends upon how it is measured with placebo having a larger effect with more subjective measures). Here too, I'd be grateful for any article showing otherwise.

Wolfgang