Placebo's in the UK

A recent survey has shown that doctors all over the United Kingdom have given a placebo to patients. In fact, 97 percent of these doctors have recommended the use of a placebo. One in one hundred doctor's said they gave out a placebo at least once a week. This may seem like pure evil, but this article says that they aren't trying to deceive patients, but help them. This usually happens in cases where a patient insists on treatment hat is not need.
It is a popular belief that the intensity of some of illnesses or health issues aren't anything more than a figment of imagination. Once a person believes they have been treated, they will believe they are cured. So, it would make sense that doctors would prescribe sugar pills or salt water injections, but this is the start of a social problem. If doctors are likely to lie about what they are prescribing, how are the people of the UK supposed to trust anything that doctors say? It would be more helpful to understand the reliability of UK doctors if the article included more examples of why doctors prescribed placebos. Its could be hard to believe that enough people suffer from hypochondria for doctors to be handing out fake prescriptions once a week. And if there are that many people suffering forms of hypochondria, it would be helpful in the article included some information about that.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/130321/many-uk-doctors-have-given-patient-placebo-drug

Emma Starnes, 2:22, 3/22/2013,