People susceptible to the placebo effect may be limiting drug approvals

Re:People susceptible to the placebo effect may be limiting ... by jessriedel on Saturday December 03, 2016 @09:40PM (#13098543)

> P.S. What about if the drug is better to the people that has no the genes they are blaming for the placebo effect, but it will kill half of the people with these genes?

That's what the phase 2 trial is for. And in any case, you can just require a genetic test for the drug.

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Re:People susceptible to the placebo effect may be limiting ... by gus_massa on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:06PM (#13098599)

Less extreme alternative: it's completely ineffective in the people with these genes.

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Re:People susceptible to the placebo effect may be limiting ... by jessriedel on Saturday December 03, 2016 @10:59PM (#13098720)

As I said: you can just require a genetic test for the drug

There's really nothing special about placebo effect here. Imagine a population of patients divided into two groups, A and B, with group A smaller but responding to the treatment much more effectively than B. Then if you can identify members of A, you can run a study that demonstrates effectiveness on A much easier than on B, and the drug can be approved for treatment of only group A (at first). This happens in real life all the time.

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