The Plabeo Effect and the Individual

There is no fixed value for the placebo effect, or the power of belief. 

It is an unknown quantity that depends on the person and their circumstance. 

It is also not possible to truly measure which part of the effect of a substance is due to belief (placebo) and what is due to the inherent properties of the substance. 

Attempts are made to do this on a population basis by the use of samples, but these are crude at best. 

After all, the placebo effect is as unique to the individual as the effect of a drug is, if not more, and so we can't meaningfully talk about populations as some kind of estimate for the individual in this regard.

Instead, the individual employs the placebo effect to its maximum by consuming those products it most believes in, while avoiding those it does not.

This is what Hayek was talking about when he discussed the superiority of decentralized decision making over centralised, top-down control.

Let consumers decide their individual health path, not bureaucrats who cannot account for the psychological and biochemical individuality of the individual.