Wow!
You know this reminds me of a discussion I had with a sister of mine many years ago. She had an illness with some vagueish symptoms and shopped around for a doctor that could cure her condition. Several doctors tried every diagnosis/test/treatment they could think of, to no avail.
At one point she received her medical records from one of the earlier doctors and discovered that one of the treatments he tried was a placebo. I tried to explain to her about the placebo effect and that her doctor was really trying to help her. But to her perception, it meant that her doctor thought she was a kook. And further, she took my explanation of the placebo as a grave betrayal on my part.