Placebo Pills For Kids- A Pill For All Ills

Your child is sick.  You can give him a fever reducer, rub his back, give him comfort and a little chicken soup. Or you can give him a placebo pill? 

That is the latest concept developed by a Maryland mother.

Jennifer Buettner was caring for a sick niece when the idea struck her.  Instead of a Motrin tablet, why not give a placebo, a sugar pill, and see if the suggestion of medication might bring about the effects of medication without the side effects?  

Buettner, from Severna Park, Maryland has taken her idea and run with it.  

Founder of Efficacy Brands, Obecalp (placebo spelled backwards) is a chewable, cherry- flavored tablet made of sugar. Expect to see them on store shelves June 1 and because they contain no drug, they’ll be sold as a dietary supplement and you’ll be able to find them anywhere you are willing to fork over $5.95 for 50 tablets.

“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 tells the New York Times. “Then their brain takes over, and they say, ‘Oh, I feel better.’ ”

Do placebos work?   One study found that when 70 children were given placebos for attention deficit disorder.  They knew the medication was a sugar pill.  After a few months the majority of the children, 80 percent, reported the placebo had helped them, suggesting it might not be necessary to deceive your children to help them.

Then there is the question of cementing in a child’s mind a “pill for every ill” solution to feeling badly. 

Then there are the times when pain is a real sign that parents need to make a run to an emergency room.  Buettner hopes that a burst appendix or broken ear drum could not be quieted with a placebo.

Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist who studies placebos at the Stanford School of Medicine, tells the New York Times that this plays into the conditioning of children which might make them easy targets for all sorts of pitches later in life.

“They used to sell candied cigarettes to kids to get them used to the idea of playing with cigarettes,” he tells the Times.

But patents up at night with a crying child might forgo conditioning worries for a good night’s sleep. 

After all, some suggest, the comforting that accompanies the “kiss it to make it feel better” is a tried and true form of placebo that worked well for centuries.  #