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Yes, that the original papers advocating the placebo effect were misleading in their reports and the popularisations thereof grossly exageratted.
Placeobo's can be shown to reliably have an effect on:
(I am not criticising the use of placebo controls here. But I am asserting that the primary benefit from such controls is in 'balancing out' other biases rather than because of direct effect of placebos on healing.)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=567913