

For example, our prior experiences with the health system and related treatments. Merrill, adult and geriatric psychiatrist and director of the Pacific Neuroscience Institute’s Pacific Brain Health Center at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, explained: These symptoms experienced are undoubtedly real, so if they are not due to active treatment, what might be the cause? Experts have attributed the nocebo effect to both psychological and neurobiological causes.ĭr. If you expect a negative outcome, you can get it.” Physical or mental causes? Therefore, it is not surprising that they also take place in COVID-19 vaccination.

Benedetti was unsurprised by these findings: “It has long been known that nocebo effects occur in many conditions, such as pain and Parkinson’s disease. In other words, they were not caused by the vaccine but by participants’ expectations.ĭr. Therefore, the authors of this study suggest that some 76% of adverse effects reported by those given the real vaccine were nocebo effects. This was compared with 46% of those given the real vaccine. Older research has suggested that when participants in a trial are told about side effects, they are likely to experience them whether they are taking the active drug or not. To gain informed consent from a patient or trial participant, physicians have to explain the risks and benefits of the treatment in detail, including possible side effects. People undergoing medical treatment must give informed consent for that treatment. If the medication itself is not responsible for the side effects, why do they happen? The need for medical professionals to gain informed consent might go some way to explaining the nocebo effect. And it can happen to those on prescribed medication, not just in trials.

So the mere act of taking a tablet or having an injection might cause side effects, which are not due to any drug it contains. One study defined the nocebo effect as “unpleasant or adverse outcomes triggered by the treatment context, beyond any inherent pharmacological effects of the treatment itself.” “People get the idea of the sugar pill that cured people - the placebo effect - because it’s a little bit of magic, really People need to see that it can also be magic that you don’t want.”
