The Ethics of Placebo-controlled Trials: A Comparison of Inert and Active Placebo Controls

Because of the recent and controversial example of sham surgery for the evaluation of fetal tissue transplants for Parkinson’s disease, there is renewed interest in the ethics of using “active” placebos in surgical trials, where otherwise there are no inert procedures available, and in pharmacological trials, where there are inert substances, but where patients may guess to which arm they have been allocated. This paper seeks to clarify the...