The Royal College of GPs said that placebos have a place in medicine, but there could be sham treatments extended to patients are inappropriate or could result in drug resistance and side effects. The study was conducted by the University of Southampton and the University of Oxford.
One in every 10 of the GPs who took part in the poll admitted to giving patients sugar pills or salty water injections at some point in their career and one in every 100 admitted to doing this once every week. Almost all the GPs said that at some point they had given patients probiotics, supplements and other complementary medicines which were not approved to treat their specific medical conditions. Three-quarters of the doctors admitted to offering unproven treatments to their patients daily or weekly.
