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Cross-posted at MotherTalkers

by Stacey

A new pill coming out next week will allow parents to treat their child’s aches and pains without administering any actual medication. According this article in the NY Times, the chewable placebo pill is made of sugar and will be cherry-flavored. It is called Obecalp, for placebo spelled backward, and will be sold by Jennifer and Dennis Buettner at the PlaceboStore.com. Bottles of 50 tablets will sell for $5.95.

Ms. Buettner, 40, who lives in Severna Park, Md., with her husband, 7-month-old son and 22-month-old twins, envisioned a children’s placebo tablet that would empower parents to do something tangible for minor ills and reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics and other medicines. “This is designed to have the texture and taste of actual medicine so it will trick kids into thinking that they’re taking something,” Ms. Buettner said. “Then their brain takes over, and they say, ‘Oh, I feel better.’ ”

But some experts question the efficacy and ethics of parents administering placebo pills to their children. “Placebos are unpredictable,” said Dr. Howard Brody, a medical ethicist and family physician at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. “Each and every time you give a placebo you see a dramatic response among some people and no response in others.” He added, “The idea that we can use a placebo as a general treatment method strikes me as inappropriate.”

Franklin G. Miller, a bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health, agrees. “As a parent of three now grown children,” he said, “I can’t think of a single instance where I’d want to give a placebo.”

Much of the power of the placebo effect seems to lie in the belief that it will work, and some experts question whether this expectation can be sustained if the person giving it knows it is a sham. Most clinical trials that have shown benefits from placebos are double blinded. Neither the recipient nor the giver knows that the pills are fake.

However, the article says that at least one study has shown that placebos can be effective even when the patients know that they are inert. In a study in 2007, 70 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were asked to reduce their medications gradually by replacing some of their drugs with placebo pills. The children and their parents were explicitly told that these “dose extender” pills contained no drug. After three months, 80 percent of the children reported that the placebo had helped them.

Experts also question whether it’s good idea to teach children that a pill can cure ailments that really heal on their own. In addition, they balk at the idea of parents lying to their children.

Despite his misgivings, Dr. Brody predicted that Obecalp would entice many parents. “Anybody who has ever been up in the middle of the night with a crying child would be tempted to try something like this,” he said. “You’re so desperate for anything that could quiet down your poor, miserable kid.”

Ms. Buettner said her pill could satisfy that need while reducing potential harms from unnecessary medications. “The overprescription of drugs is a serious problem, and I think there needs to be an alternative,” she said.

When it comes to bumps and bruises, it used to be that hugs and kisses helped my older son feel better. Lately, we use a bandaid to help him calm down, even when he really doesn’t need one. Are we moving in the direction of placebo pills? How much more different is an unneeded bandaid than an unneeded pill? (The company plans to release a liquid version soon, the article says.)

What do you think? Would you put Obecalp in your bag of tricks?

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