Table of Contents
What are the ethical issues in using placebo?
The ethical problem with placebo treatment is not that the patient is receiving an ineffective medicine—the placebo, as we have claimed, may be quite effective, just as the standard medication may prove, in any particular case, to be useless or even harmful; furthermore, the placebo will usually have the advantage of …
Why is it unethical to prescribe a placebo?
“It’s unethical for a doctor to give a patient a placebo” says Dr. Harriet Hall, a retired family physician who writes critically about alternative and complementary approaches to medical care. “It involves deception,” she emphasizes, “Lying is wrong, and if doctors start lying to patients, it destroys the trust.
What is the ethical problem with giving a patient a placebo and saying it is an antidepressant?
While some placebo use is patently unethical – providing a treatment that “has no scientific basis and is dangerous, is calculated to deceive the patient by giving false hope, or which may cause the patient to delay in seeking proper care” – other uses of placebos are widely seen as ethical, writes Barnhill.
When is a placebo treatment considered an ethical treatment?
The World Medical Association has reaffirmed its view that in general it is ethically unacceptable to conduct placebo controlled trials if a proven therapy is available for the condition under investigation.
What are the principles in placebo conflict?
Placebo treatment usually involves some degree of deception and thus conflicts with the ethical principle of respect to person (right to autonomy, right to be treated with dignity, the “right to know”).
Can you ever deceive your patient by administering placebo medication?
If justifiable, undisclosed placebo use will have to be justified as a practice that is deceptive in most instances. Given the reasonable expectations patients have about medical treatment, undisclosed use of placebos, even when it qualifies as CPT, deceives many patients.
Is placebo-controlled ethical?
Is the placebo effect deception?
A common feature of research investigating the placebo effect is deception of research participants about the nature of the research. This use of deception is considered necessary to understanding the placebo effect, but has received little systematic ethical attention.
What could be the reason s for the researcher to deceive participants or respondents?
Points for Consideration Potential of deception to facilitate unwanted and inappropriate invasion of privacy. Potential coercion of participants into acting against their own will. Potential for participants to change their mind about the use of their data after the deception is revealed.
How is deception used in psychological research?
In psychology, deception is commonly used to increase experimental control. Yet, its use has provoked concerns that it raises participants’ suspicions, prompts sec- ond-guessing of experimenters’ true intentions, and ultimately distorts behavior and endangers the control it is meant to achieve.
What is passive deception?
Passive deception ( or omission) is the withholding or omitting of information; the researcher intentionally does not tell participants some information about the study.
What are ethical violations in research?
Our study identified three major ethical violations, lack of informed consent, coercion and lack of return of results.
What are the ethics of placebos?
The ethics of placebos. A placebo is a medicine that doesn’t contain an active drug ingredient but still has a therapeutic effect. Many studies have demonstrated a strong placebo effect.
Is it ethical to use placebo control groups?
Ethical issues related to the use of placebo in clinical trials Controversy exists regarding the ethics of using placebo control groups in clinical trials when effective treatments exist. The debate was fuelled by the announcement of the fifth revision of the Declaration of Helsinki in 2000.
Do placebos work when they are not told?
They can work even when people are told they are being given a placebo (although they work better when people are not told). But the ethics of placebo use is rather complicated. Consider the ethics of these two scenarios using placebos – treating a psychosomatic disorder and testing a new drug.
Is placebo use ethical in drug clinical trials on migraine?
The use of placebo in drug clinical trials on migraine commonly leads to numerous ethical uncertainties. Methods: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the deliberation method helps in analysing the issues and finding solutions to selected ethical problems.