Pursuing the Placebo Effect

In February 2012, PiPS Director Ted Kaptchuk and PiPS Senior Faculty Arthur Barsky presented at Talks@Twelve, a quarterly lecture given to the Harvard Medical School community. We just received the a link to the video filmed by the Harvard Medical School Communications Office. To watch, click here.

Photo by Angela Alberti

Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize Winning Essay: The Nocebo Effect

NOCEBO

: a harmless substance that when taken by a patient is associated with harmful effects due to negative expectations or the psychological condition of the patient. Origin: Latin, I will be harmful; after placebo. 

 

Last week, Penny Sarchet, a graduate student in the Department of Plant Sciences based at Lincoln College, University of Oxford, won the 2011 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize for an essay about the nocebo effect. Read her essay, published in The Guardian, here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/13/nocebo-pain-wellcome-trust-prize?newsfeed=true