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.
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.