Word: modern
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Earning a driver's license is a modern-day right of passage for American teens - and for their fretful parents. But even though it marks teenagers' first major step toward independence, researchers say parents can still wield a lot of influence on how safely - or hazardously - that transition unfolds...
...pharmaceutical industry is familiar with the concept. In 2004, it spent $23 billion on marketing, crafting an image of safety, health, and well-being through television and print ads as well as the aggressive pursuit of trusted doctors and health-care professionals. Indeed, the positive effects of many modern medical treatments including cough medicines, antibiotics in the case of some infections, and the majority of back and arthroscopic surgeries have been proven to be the result of culturally ingrained expectations of their usefulness. Not one of the listed treatments beats a less expensive alternative...
...developed into a derogatory term for a medication aimed at pleasing the patient more than healing him. Today, it refers to a simple sugar pill used in clinical trials as a control to judge the effectiveness of new drugs. Ironically, the placebo today tends to equal or even surpass modern pharmaceuticals in effectiveness: the “placebo effect.” Placebos are relevant in our lives in not just medicine, however—many elevator “door close” and street crossing “press to walk” buttons are placebos...
What the growing placebo effect shows is not so much the failure of modern medicine as much as the success of the modern production of beliefs. The modern health-care narrative is so firmly entrenched that it needs no introduction. You are sick; you visit the doctor; he diagnoses the illness; he prescribes the appropriate medication; you get better. Often this process, and not the actual treatment, cures us with its normality. This is why 55 percent of Chicago doctors have prescribed a placebo treatment to their patients...
...this is not to deemphasize the importance of modern medicine. There are certainly drugs and treatments on the market that continue to significantly improve upon the placebo effect—but equally important is the perception and the culture of health care...