One of my observations was that ads touting antidepressants show them working better than placebo; doesn't that mean they tested them against placebos, not against the best drugs of their competitors?
I really am still pretty sure that placebos are commonly used as control groups, though the Helsinki declaration makes me somewhat less certain.
I'm aware that placebos work using weird psychological thingies, and that they are not magic nor do they work on 100% of people. But I'm pretty sure they work, as in, objectively tend to cause beneficial subjective effects? Whether something works according to direct biological mechanisms or indirect psychological ones, it still works.
Neonivek, I meant "if you only use the gold standard as your control group and don't compare the tested drug to placebos, you'll never discover effects weaker than the gold standard but stronger than the placebo." I don't even know how you got "you will never find a drug that is stronger than a drug that "fixed everything"," because that's not true, there are lots of drugs that are stronger than placebos. And of course I'm aware of that skew's existence: it's like half the reason placebos work. But just because something is subjective doesn't mean it's not important or useful.
ChairmanPoo, you're evidently familiar with the Declaration of Helsinki, have you studied medicine or research?