(As a french) I argue that it's better for physicians to have a way out to not give anything active to the patient who is adament they need a drug for their flu to be over faster. Also, placebo effect do work.
The price isn't immense though... We're speaking of like 3€ for a month of "treatment". I would definitely rather the state to pocket that money but for the placebo to work you need a bit of marketing, so I don't really know what's the best way.
> You could just give some natural products as placebos that are not hurting trust in medicine by legitimizing quackery.
homeopathics are completely natural products, since it's literally sugar...?
https://www.cell.com/trends/molecular-medicine/fulltext/S147...
"Highlights
•Predisposition to respond to placebo treatment may be in part a stable heritable trait.
• Candidate placebo response pathways may interact with drugs to modify outcomes in both the placebo and drug treatment arms of clinical trials.
• Genomic analysis of randomized placebo and no-treatment controlled trials are needed to fully realize the potential of the placebome."