I am a little confused about all these drugs trials were they have say 300 people on them.
170 on drug A
130 on a placebo

Results = drug A whooped the *** off the placebo?

erm hang on a minute, if you are trialling a new drug on people with a disorder and the drug is specifically for the disorder and in the same trial you give people a placebo for the same disorder, I would think that the drug would win hands down.

How can they say that a drug is a success just because it defeated a placebo?

Placebo = pretend pill
Drug A = real drug

I just find these results laughable.

actually, the reason they use placebos, is because the power of suggestion can have truly remarkeable affects on people.

If someone were to join a study, as an example, and was told that a pill they were taking was going to help them sleep, (if they were insomniacs), a good portion of the placebo group might very well report better sleep habits. This does not detract from the benefits of the real med, but puts the benefits reported by the control group in perspective. So, in this example, if the same number reported benefits in both groups, it may very well be that the med doesnt perform as well as expected, whereas if the control group outperforms the placebo group, then the results might be translated to mean that the test was a success.

Ultimately, its impossible to tell how successful a med is in trials, until you look at how they established the milestones of the clinical trials, and how THEY measured success.

I know the power of suggestion is very powerful, but saying a drug came out on top between the drug itself and a placebo proves nothing.

I could do the same with a toffee sweet and a real drug and get mixed results, it just proves the mind can be tricked, not that the drug is very good.

My 83 year old granmother swears that she only has to take a tic tac when she has heart palpitations because she did that by accident one time instead of taking her heart medication and she was fine...