Prescribing placebos has become a common thing among US doctors, with more than half of them admitting to do it on a regular basis in order to make their patients feel better. The finding was the result of a nationwide survey involving 679 internists and rheumatologists and appears in the Oct. 24 online edition of the British Medical Journal.

One of the most intriguing processes in medicine is the placebo effect: the healing power of a sham therapy, when it's offered to patients with the suggestion that it will help.

The survey made by researchers at the National Institutes Health’s bioethics department found that about half of respondents regularly prescribed placebos without telling their patients about it. Furthermore, only 62 percent of them thought the practice right from an ethical point of view.

“Prescribing placebo treatments seems to be common and is viewed as ethically permissible among the surveyed U.S. internists and rheumatologists,” the survey concludes.

The doctors often prescribed as placebos over-the-counter painkillers (41 percent of them), vitamins 38 percent), antibiotics (13 percent) and sedatives (13 percent).

The practice clearly contradicts advice from the American Medical Association, which says that doctors must tell their patients what pills they are prescribing and what benefits they should expect for.

“It’s a disturbing finding. There is an element of deception here which is contrary to the principle of informed consent,” said Franklin G. Miller, director of the research ethics program at the U.S. National Institutes Health and one of the study authors.

Otherwise, the patient-physician relationship could be compromised, resulting in medical harm to the patient. Placebos can be used though when patients are being told the truth about such a therapy and they agree to follow it.