I think placebo group is the only scientific way to prove a drug is actually working on the human body. Since it is no longer a mystery that a psychological effect called “placebo effect” is proved to be statistically effective for relieving symptoms of a disease, we will never know this drug is effective because of this effect or it actually does something in the body to make things better. This placebo effect must be excluded to explain the results of a drug in clinical trials. As for the ethical issues, I don’t think of this as a real thing since in most cases, subjects are mostly made of those who are eager to find out the solution of their diseases, and the status quo of medicine knowledge cannot cure them, under such circumstances, the developing drugs are coming for the purpose of pushing the frontier of the battle to that disease a step further, before that, nobody can get a better drug. Besides, as long as the informed consent form should cover how placebo group works and why this should be set as confidential, it should not be considered as a way of “cheating or decoying” people into such experiment.