[bigfudge2]

Outlawing active placebos would actually be very foolish. Up to 90% of patients and 100% of physicians have been found to have broken blinds in trials of tricyclics, almost certainly because of the side effects. The original article is extremely weak in failing to address this... in fact, drug companies really should be adding ingredients with side effects to their placebos, but won't because it increases the complexity and reduces the statistical power of the trials they run.

[einhverfr]

Agreed, so change advertising requirements. Instead of "compared to a placebo" (which is highly misleading in this case), make the drug companies disclose side effects differently. "In clinical trials, this drug had the following incidents of side effects... An active placebo intended to cause anticipated side effects had the following incidents...."

This preserves all of what you can currently get, but it frames the issue so that the average individual does not assume that an on-par comparison means all side effects are placebo effect.