Study: placebo addiction growing among control subjects

New York, N.Y. – In a study released this week by the Council for Placebo Safety (CPS), the non-profit group claims to have found that placebo addiction is growing at an alarming rate among scientific experiments’ control subjects.

The CPS study is the most comprehensive scientific examination ever carried out to gauge the effects of scientific studies on control subjects. To determine the effects of placebos on control subjects, the study collected data from 783 control subjects of scientific experiments.

“I never had a dependency on anything before,” said former control subject Hank Collins, who now is unable to go more than a few hours without ingesting a water pill. “It’s played havoc with my life. I’m constantly going to the bathroom at work to sneak a few pills… I’m not as thirsty anymore.”

Collins’ case is just one of thousands across the nation that the CPS maintains could have been avoided with proper education and prevention measures. The data from this study showed 649 out of 783, or 83 percent, of the former control subjects suffer from moderate to debilitating addiction to a placebo in which they were introduced during scientific experimentation.

“What we have is a negligent scientific community,” said director of the CPS, Art Roberts. “Scientists are so concerned with experimental groups, they pay no heed to the effects their ruthless designs have upon control subjects.”

The CPS study found that in order to satisfy placebo addictions, many control subjects repeatedly volunteered for scientific experiments. Most notably, this trend was observed among men and women aged 18 to 22 who were enrolled at universities as undergraduate psychology and biology majors.

While the study has been published after observing its subjects for one year, CPS researchers will continue to analyze long-term effects of placebo abuse in participants who display current addictive behaviors. The CPS expects to find continued addictive conduct among this group that will result in unintended health matters such as hydration and vitamin efficiency.

“We owe more to our control subjects,” said Roberts, whose son became addicted to Vitamin C after taking part in a psychology department study at Ohio State University. “Just look at my son. I’d like to see some scientist come to my house every night and sit up with him as he makes trip after trip to the bathroom because of indigestion.”

Roberts and others on the board of the CPS hope to draw attention to placebo addiction with their study. Next month they will sit down with top members of the National Institute of Health in Washington to seek tougher regulations on control group practices and programs to assist the thousands of placebo-addicted U.S. citizens.

Courtesy of our news partner The Giant Napkin.