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I am quite a novice to the field of clinical research. While reading a study which was a double-blind RCT, I noted the conclusion that the experimental group did not have a significantly improved response to therapy over the placebo group. The conclusion, therefore, was that the treatment was ineffective. My question is this: Are we right to assume that a placebo-treated group is a true "control" population when studying a disease which is subject to psycho-somatic exacerbations? If this patient population's response to placebo is high, might this not be an unfair standard against which the treatment modality is measured? %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%