Proposal: to avoid the confusion Morendil is concerned about (to the extend that it actually is a problem), I suggest a general change in terminology that highlights how placebos are used in trials to establish a baseline, and de-emphasizes the suggestion that a specific mechanism (psychosomatic healing) has already been validated. Any of the follow terms would, I suspect, accomplish this:

• placebo portion
• placebo fraction
• placebo baseline

Then, I would recommend the following changes of expression:

"Yeah, patient X got better, but that was just the placebo effect." -> "Patient X's improvement was within the placebo baseline."

"You think you got better by using that supplement, but that was probably just the placebo effect." -> "If you got better, the improvement was probably within the placebo baseline, so I don't think you can attribute it to any active ingredient of the supplement itself."

"Patients in the test group showed improvement best explained by the placebo effect." -> "Patients in the test group showed improvement, but not beyond the placebo fraction."

Morendil, do you think this would be a better way to talk about it?