22 April 2007

• Placebo: a substance having no pharmacological effect but given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine.
• Dr. Abuzzahab stopped giving her the antidepressant, and she was forced to wait nearly two weeks before receiving either an experimental drug or a placebo.

• Heft: Weight; heaviness; significance; importance.
• Dr. Abuzzahab would not comment on particular cases but said the state medical board’s disciplinary action against him was “without heft.”