H1N1 and Placebos

Many of you readers are sure to be concerned about the pandemic of H1N1 "Swine 'Flu." There are many reports of concerns about the H1N1-targeted flu vaccine, how effective it is, when it will become available, who will get it first and how much will it cost. From what we read, the new vaccine cuts at most a day off the recovery time from this strain of the 'flu.

We at Best Placebos, though, are more interested in how placebos performed in those vaccine tests, and what was in them. After all, if the vaccine performs marginally better than the placebos, shouldn't we find the cheapest source of this nearly effective medicine and distribute that as a prophylactic choice?