Placebos Sould be Used on Patients Without their Consent

The documented use of placebos on patients goes as far back as 1580 (Placebo Effect 58) and as the use of placebos on patients spreads more and more, a question arises. That question is whether or not the use of placebos on patients without obtaining their consent is an acceptable practice in medicine. The answer is that placebos should be used on patients without their consent. This will be argued by explaining why certain people think that placebos are unethical, why are placebos safe, and by comparing them with other forms of medicine.

Though many of you may have heard that patients should be told that they are receiving placebos, the placebo effect is due to two main mechanisms: expectancy and conditioning. Expectancy is based on what patients are told about a certain product and thus telling patients that they are receiving an inert substance is ruining this aspect of the treatment and the effect of the placebo is therefore greatly reduced (Placebo Effect 59). Also, knowing that they are receiving a sham treatment would make an unfavourable bias towards the treatment as the placebo effect depends greatly on the patients’ attitude towards the treatment and they would have some reserve towards it if they knew it does not contain any active medicine (What is 61). In a study done by Fabrizio Benedetti, described as one of the best researchers on placebos by Stewart Justman, on the use of placebos as antidepressants, a group was taking placebos and the other one antidepressants. On the eighth week, according to the study director, groups could not be told apart psychologically. The group that was receiving placebos was then told what

they were truly receiving and within a month most of those patients’ state had declined to th...

... middle of paper ...

...their operation. Two years later, patients that merely had had the anaesthesia had improved by as much as patients who had

received the real surgeries (Blankeslee 75). This illustrates that thinking one has a treatment is a good part of the treatment itself.

So, as placebos are safer than both conventional and non-conventional medicine, that a substantial part of drugs' effect is due to the placebo effect, and that the use of placebos has not to be explicitly said, it is ethical for placebos to be used on patients without their consent. Based on those reasons, the use of placebos on uninformed patients is ethical and should therefore spread even more than it already has which could lead a healthy civilization without the side effects of active medicine.

Works Cited

Hebert, Gordon, comp. English for Science Students. Montreal: Champlain College, 2014. Print.