And The Winner Is.....

And the 2008 Ig Nobel Prize in medicine goes to…the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where researchers revealed an unusual wrinkle in the placebo effect.

The MIT team recruited 80 subjects and gave each a mild electrical shock on the wrist. Then each subject was given a painkilling drug. Along with the pill, half the subjects were given a brochure describing the drug as newly approved by the FDA. The price of the drug: $2.50 per dose. The other subjects received a similar brochure that listed the drug's cost at just 10 cents per dose.

Then each subject was given the electrical shock again. Among those who read the brochure with the $2.50 list price, 85 percent said their pain was reduced. In the "low price" group, about 60 percent reported less pain. And here's the best part: All the pills were placebos – completely free of active ingredients.

Reporting in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers noted that their results help explain why patients who switch from a brand-name drug to a generic with identical active ingredients often find the generic to be less effective.

And the authors added: "Furthermore, clinicians may be able to harness quality cues in beneficial ways, for example, by de-emphasizing potentially deleterious commercial factors (e.g., low-priced, generic)." In other words, doctors should sell a generic with some snap and sizzle. Plant the idea in the patient's brain that it's a whale of a drug! That's a terrific idea, of course…as long as the patient is getting a side-effect free placebo.

Link for the other winners.

I liked: "Economics: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber, and Brent Jordan, for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility."