The placebo-controlled trial is the gold standard of medical research.

This is considered perhaps the first placebo-controlled trial of a therapy ever conducted.

"Instead, a placebo-controlled trial may be the only way to obtain an answer that is ultimately useful to people in similar circumstances."

And would the successes stay high and the side effects low in a large, placebo-controlled trial?

The placebo response rate at the 20% improvement criteria was unusually high (32%) for a placebo-controlled trial.

Researchers are performing "placebo-controlled surgical trials" in which they cut patients open and sew them back up without doing anything.

Lessons learned from attempts to establish the blind in placebo-controlled trials of zinc for the common cold.

This makes it unlikely that additional placebo-controlled trials will be carried out in this area.

A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial found statistically significant results with a small sample size of 42 patients.

This viewpoint argues that where no standards of care exist, as for instance in developing countries, then placebo-controlled trials are appropriate.