COUNTLESS clinical trials of new drugs have compared the supposed cure with a placebo to see if the drug really is effective - but what did the people getting the placebo actually swallow? Jennifer Buettner, an American "mommy", as she describes herself, learned to her dismay that there was no recognised, standardised placebo available anywhere in the world. So she developed a "pharmaceutical grade placebo", gave it a clever name - Obecalp - and is now selling it over the internet.
It contains dextrose and natural cherry flavour and is guaranteed to be inert. Who might want to buy Obercalp? Buettner is hoping paediatricians will. "I was amazed to learn of the massive over-prescribing and lack of efficacy in children's drugs," she says. "Why, when drugs are not needed, couldn't children, adults and seniors be given a placebo by their medical authority figure instead?" Obecalp, she concludes, "fills the gap when medicine is not needed but children need something more than a kiss to make them feel better."
