Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why. (long)

[pauldun170]

Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.
By Steve Silberman Email 08.24.09
Photo: Nick Veasey

Merck was in trouble. In 2002, the pharmaceutical giant was falling behind its rivals in sales. Even worse, patents on five blockbuster drugs were about to expire, which would allow cheaper generics to flood the market. The company hadn't introduced a truly new product in three years, and its stock price was plummeting.

In interviews with the press, Edward Scolnick, Merck's research director, laid out his battle plan to restore the firm to preeminence. Key to his strategy was expanding the company's reach into the antidepressant market, where Merck had lagged while competitors like Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline created some of the best-selling drugs in the world. "To remain dominant in the future," he told Forbes, "we need to dominate the central nervous system."

His plan hinged on the success of an experimental antidepressant codenamed MK-869. Still in clinical trials, it looked like every pharma executive's dream: a new kind of medication that exploited brain chemistry in innovative ways to promote feelings of well-being. The drug tested brilliantly early on, with minimal side effects, and Merck touted its game-changing potential at a meeting of 300 securities analysts.

Behind the scenes, however, MK-869 was starting to unravel. True, many test subjects treated with the medication felt their hopelessness and anxiety lift. But so did nearly the same number who took a placebo, a look-alike pill made of milk sugar or another inert substance given to groups of volunteers in clinical trials to gauge how much more effective the real drug is by comparison. The fact that taking a faux drug can powerfully improve some people's health—the so-called placebo effect—has long been considered an embarrassment to the serious practice of pharmacology.

Ultimately, Merck's foray into the antidepressant market failed. In subsequent tests, MK-869 turned out to be no more effective than a placebo. In the jargon of the industry, the trials crossed the futility boundary.

the rest here...

http://www.wired.com/print/medtech/d...placebo_effect

[Homeslice]

Maybe because the drug itself doesn't do shit, except pollute people's liver with toxins?

[MILK]

And because most of America doesn't want to actually DO anything - just take a pill to make it all better??

[tommymac]

A psych med may be able to have a greater placebo effect than something that say lowers blood pressure, an or blood sugar levels say. There is still alot thats not known about the human mind and a lot of these meds are a crapshoot anyway.

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by milk

and because most of america doesn't want to actually do anything - just take a pill to make it all better??

qft

[EpyonXero]

You can do anything if you literally put your mind to it, thats why meditation works.

[Adeptus_Minor]

Just going by the thread title...
Why are placebos getting more effective?
Umm... because more and more illnesses are the physical manifestation of our inner desire to blame our diminished sense of well-being on something we can take a pill for rather than on something we have to work to change.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by EpyonXero

You can do anything if you literally put your mind to it, thats why meditation works.

part of why ill only go to the doctors if im forced. willpower and intentional exposure to a wide variety of bacteria keep me ticking like a clock. doesnt work so great on dissintary though