“The reason unorthodox medicines, supplements and therapies so often match the placebo effect is simple: they are placebos. If a man takes a pill containing powdered rhino horn for erectile dysfunction (a traditional African remedy) and ends up with a rhino-sized erection, it is his brain that has done the work, not the ingredients. If, however, he gets the same result after taking online pharmacy, that is almost certainly because the drug sildenafil citrate has increased the blood flow into his penis. Viagra works, and Pfizer, who make it, can justifiably say so. The rhino pill manufacturers can only truthfully say that their product may possibly have a beneficial effect – but not as a result of anything that the product contains. And the same goes for the manufacturers of thousands of herbal remedies and food supplements.”
(Damian Thompson in ‘Counterknowledge,’ p. 93 Landmark)
