Double-blinded testing is a method used when testing the effects of medicines before released into the public domain.
Half of the patients are given the medicine whilst the other half of patients are given a ‘dummy medicine’ called a placebo. This placebo looks exactly the same as the actual medicine but it is just a fake.
This is so that the scientists and the patients do not know who was given the medicine and who was given a placebo. Hence the name ‘double-blinded testing’, so they just have to wait to see if there are any changes in the patients.
