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The benefits of placebos
Placebo effect essay
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The Ethics of Placebos Placebos, whether we know it or not, are being used and prescribed to us throughout our lives. However, there are some questions that are tied to the use and suggestion to use placebos. The major question is, is it ethical to be prescribed a placebo while still maintaining our autonomy as a patient? This topic has been a subject of debate for over a century, however, little scientific data has been found to prefer the use of placebos over nonuse. The author will attempt to come to a conclusion of this debate, one that respects and acknowledges the ethics of the health care field and the patient. Before doing so, the author will provide information on what a placebo is, scientific comparisons to real drugs, pay consideration …show more content…
30). These inactive substances are administered by a health care professional as if it were any other active medication. The purpose of a placebo fluctuates depending on the situation given. However, for the most part, placebos are given in order to achieve a desired treatment in which a pharmacological agent could have reached the same outcome. This is done, usually, without the patient knowing that the ‘medication’ has no actual pharmacological properties. Asai and Kadooka (2012), further break down the definition of a placebo into two categories. There is a pure placebo and an impure placebo. A pure placebo is made of substances with no known clinical use. An impure placebo is composed of substances that are not made to treat that patient’s condition, but another condition. Barnhill (2012), adds one more type of placebo to the list. Joining sugar pills and active drugs that are effective for a different disease, are active drugs that are administered at too low of a dose to be effective. All of these can be considered placebos and are occasionally given without the patient’s …show more content…
However, as research goes on, there seems to be instances of placebos resulting in desired outcomes. “About one-third of patients have experiences some degree of improvement in conditions such as pain, angina pectoris, cough, anxiety, depression, hypertension, headeache, seasickness, and the common cold with placebos” (Asai & Kadooka 2012, p. 188). Rawlins (2015), discusses another instance in which patients who knew they were taking placebos had relief of irritable bowel syndrome symptoms. Not only are these placebos reaching a desired result, they are doing so without the risks of medication side effects and interactions. Cohen and Shapiro (2013) even consider placebo use as the gold standard of treatment. “The placebo effect, is this defines as an improvement in a patient’s condition resulting from the symbolic aspects of the encounter with a healer o a healing setting, rather than the pharmacologic or physiologic actions of the intervention” (Asai & Kadooka 2012, p.
I begin in section 2 by discussing Grünbaum's detailed analysis of what a placebo is. I then use his idea of a generic intentional Placebo and discuss one of many similar experiments concerning the phenomenon of clinical depression, experiments that use the monoamine hypothesis and the notion of a generic intentional placebo. This experiment is described in section 3. In section 4 I analyze the results of this study and in section 5 I offer concluding remarks.
Ernst, E., & Resch, K. L. (1995). Concept of true and perceived placebo effects. British Medical
To help humanity better its health and to better understand the placebo effect. If over the counter medicine performs better than the placebo, then it won’t be allowed to enter the market. Scientist should follow the key points to achieve a positive effect of the placebo effect. There are many limits to the placebo effect but to better humanity’s understanding on the placebo effect there should be more research and studies on the placebo effect in accordance to modern medicine, it will be every beneficial for society in the long
Do you think Doctor should secretly prescribe placebos to the patients? Is it Ethical for doctors to prescribe Placebos? In my view it’s “Yes”, because even placebo is a drug that has no value in itself, but improves a patient's health condition as they believe. Placebo treatment is also known as 'sham' treatment in the field of meditative. Taking some sugar pill or saline injection has been positive results from the patient. 80% of patients had a positive response by taking sugar water to cure from vomiting. There are several explanations why placebos work. Placebo is an opioid medicine, which has a positive response by taking apill, it is the conditioning model, which has great impact in medicine but contact with rehabilitative health care services, and it is an expectation treatment in which patients improve because they expect the placebo to have a satisfied effect.
In Marcia Angell’s article, “The Ethics of Clinical Research in the Third World,” she strongly argues the use of clinical placebo-controlled trials done in developing countries are unethical if an effective treatment already exists. Angell believes studies that compare potential new treatment with a placebo controlled group is ineffective and unnecessary. All research studies should offer the best standard of care and give participants the most beneficial outcome and treatment possible. The main priority of a study is not the goals of the research itself, but the well-being of the participants. Angell uses many sources to defend her argument, such as WHO.
In this diverse society we are confronted everyday with so many ethical choices in provision of healthcare for individuals. It becomes very difficult to find a guideline that would include a border perspective which might include individual’s beliefs and preference across the world. Due to these controversies, the four principles in biomedical ethic which includes autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice help us understand and explain which medical practices are ethical and acceptable. These principles are not only used to protect the rights of a patient but also the physician from being violated.
A divergent set of issues and opinions involving medical care for the very seriously ill patient have dogged the bioethics community for decades. While sophisticated medical technology has allowed people to live longer, it has also caused protracted death, most often to the severe detriment of individuals and their families. Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, believes too many Americans are “dying badly.” In discussing this issue, he stated, “Families cannot imagine there could be anything worse than their loved one dying, but in fact, there are things worse.” “It’s having someone you love…suffering, dying connected to machines” (CBS News, 2014). In the not distant past, the knowledge, skills, and technology were simply not available to cure, much less prolong the deaths of gravely ill people. In addition to the ethical and moral dilemmas this presents, the costs of intensive treatment often do not realize appreciable benefits. However, cost alone should not determine when care becomes “futile” as this veers medicine into an even more dangerous ethical quagmire. While preserving life with the best possible care is always good medicine, the suffering and protracted deaths caused from the continued use of futile measures benefits no one. For this reason, the determination of futility should be a joint decision between the physician, the patient, and his or her surrogate.
Physician-assisted suicide refers to the physician acting indirectly in the death of the patient -- providing the means for death. The ethics of PAS is a continually debated topic. The range of arguments in support and opposition of PAS are vast. Justice, compassion, the moral irrelevance of the difference between killing and letting die, individual liberty are many arguments for PAS. The distinction between killing and letting die, sanctity of life, "do no harm" principle of medicine, and the potential for abuse are some of the arguments in favor of making PAS illegal. However, self-determination, and ultimately respect for autonomy are relied on heavily as principle arguments in the PAS issue.
The placebo effect according to Shapiro, is ‘The nonspecific psychological or physiological therapeutic effect produced by a placebo or the effect of spontaneous improvement attributed to the placebo treatment’ (Shapiro, 1968, cited in Harrington, 1997)
The first article is entitled “of mice but not men: problems of randomized clinical trials,” is written by Samuel Hellman and Deborah S. Hellman discusses the issues of randomized medical testing and experiments on patients. The article describes the role of the personal physician and how the physician can take an ethical or unethical path of treating his/her patients. The relationship between the patient and physician is greatly emphasized because according to the article trust is very valuable in medicine especially when a patient’s life is at risk. A Kantian and a Utilitarian view of randomized clinical trials are debated but the authors clearly steers towards a Kantian point of view.
Today, most people who travel to a doctor 's office don 't give any idea to the type of doctor that they 're starting to find out. The traditionally trained physicians in the globe. Are trained in one way, whereas holistic doctors, also known as natural medicine practitioners, are trained in a completely different way. Many of us believe our doctors implicitly, and then when we prescribe a pharmaceutical, we merely fill the prescription and get hold of it as we are ordered. In truth is you can 't assume that your doctor always gets it right. It is very common for doctors to misdiagnose patients and prescribe them medications that they don 't need. This essay will discuss why should use the Alternative medicine.
Miller, F. (2003). Therapeutic Misconception in the Ethics of Clinical Trials,. The Hastings Center Report.
Legitimacy and justifying placebo use in clinical trials. Employing placebo in clinical trials can improve the quality of the study results. Firstly, a placebo group employment enables to evaluate efficacy of blind, randomised subject control medical treatment avoiding assessment bias. Secondly, it can be reduce the number of patients to conduct since outcomes in different states, these are treatment group and placebo group can be compared which makes the difference clearer whether the results are beneficial or harmful. Thirdly, placebo can be used in addition to normal treatment of patients, where results will show genuine results as beneficial or harmful conditional change....
Studies have shown that about 75% of alternative remedies are not backed up by any scientific research. Most remedies or therapies are backed up by biased research instead of actual studies.
The study of Shang et al compared placebo-controlled trails of homeopathy and allopathy (2). The study consisted of a literature search for placebo-controlled homeopathic trials in a wide variety of databases. The authors found 110 eligible placebo controlled trials of homeopathy that they could use in this study. Furthermore, the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register was used to identify placebo-controlled trials of conventional medicine. These conventional medicine trails were matched with the homeopathic trials for comparison. These pairs of trials were categorised by clinical topic.