Faking It

“Fake medical treatment can work amazingly well,” writes Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow. “For a range of ailments, from pain and nausea to depression and Parkinson’s disease, placebos—whether sugar pills, saline injections, or sham surgery—have often produced results that rival those of standard therapies. … And as evidence of the effect’s power mounts, members of the medical community are increasingly asking an intriguing question: if the placebo effect can help patients, shouldn’t we start putting it to work? In certain ways, placebos are ideal drugs: they typically have no side effects and are essentially free.