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Is it ethical for doctors to prescribe placebos?
By Lauren | October 27, 2008
Last week, the British Medical Journal published the surprising results of a new survey of American doctors concerning the use of placebos, harmless vitamins or over-the-counter painkillers that work because a patient thinks they will. According to the Journal, almost half of the doctors surveyed reported that they prescribe placebos two or three times a month for various conditions. However, only one in twenty doctors actually told patients they were getting a placebo. The other nineteen doctors’ patients apparently took the placebos thinking they were taking drugs that had been clinically proven to treat their ailments.
Here’s the ethical dilemma doctors face: patients have a right to know about their medical care, and it’s normally considered unethical for a doctor to withhold information about prescribed treatments. However, placebos work because the patient’s faith in the treatment triggers an improvement in the patient’s health. If the patient knows the prescribed treatment is a placebo, the treatment probably won’t be anywhere near as effective. And, some doctors might argue, if a treatment is beneficial, does it really matter whether the benefit is the result of a chemical reaction or the work of the patient’s mind?
The American Medical Association thinks that it does. Its Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs has issued an opinion stating that doctors should only use placebos with the patient’s consent, and “must avoid deception when administering placebos.” The opinion recognizes that “the use of a placebo without the patient’s knowledge may undermine trust, compromise the patient-physician relationship, and result in medical harm to the patient.” It might also lead to a malpractice lawsuit; a patient who feel that his or her trust has been betrayed may very well turn to the courts for redress.
Doctors who fail to disclose to their patients that they’ve been taking placebos are probably well-intended, but they’re taking a serious professional risk. For ethical as well as professional liability reasons, telling the patient the truth about placebo treatments is the better course of action.
Topics: Business Ethics, Professional Ethics, business communications, ethics |
October 27th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I’m usually skeptical of medical news stories, and I haven’t read the article that was published. It would be interesting to look into the full story.
If a doctor prescribes an antibiotic for a viral illness, that is technically a placebo. There is no pharmacological benefit for the patient. It appears to me that each time this happens, the doctor must tell the patient and mark the chart as such that the drug will not treat the illness. That should be fun to police. I wonder what the AMA’s enforcement of its ethical standards are. Considering that some attribute the emergence of super-bugs to the over-use of antibiotics, I wonder where this could lead….
October 27th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
While I understand the ethical perspective of this argument, I still have a bit of a problem with it. Isn’t the entire reason that a doctor prescribes a placebo to help the patient heal through their mind? If the patient is told that the drug doesn’t work, wouldn’t it make just as much sense to prescribe nothing at all?
October 28th, 2008 at 11:48 am
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