[krisoft]

> "drug not given->patient gets better" is wonderful in the super-rare cases when it happens and is totally unproblematic.

It is not actually super rare. One might even say this is the most common case. I guess what you can say is that spontaneous remission is super rare to happen for “serious” diseases. But that is circular reasoning because we kinda define serious diseases by the fact that it is rare to just get better without treatment from them.

Why is this important? Because this is one of the main wrinkles with drug testing. If some people just get better on their own then you have to be very carefull with statistics and double blind protocols. Because if not you might confirm your belief in an innefective, or maybe even harmful treatment by random happenstance. Therefore i would say this case is also one of the big hurdles in drug discovery.

Otherwise i agree with the general gist of your comment.

[ifyoubuildit]

I think this belief is how you end up with people who think you need some cocktail of OTC drugs every time you get a cold.

A child gets a run of the mill cold, parents give them all the OTC things, kid gets better and assumes it must have been because of the drugs. In reality, they didn't need any of it.