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Placebo Drugs
One of the most important factors involved in medical trials is probably ethics. Concerns like participant autonomy and informed consent are among the top priorities of the research clinician. This is why the use of placebos in clinical trials produces some murky waters, particularly with issues like the current Ebola crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa. While it is definitely acceptable to use a placebo in some cases, other cases produce crises of a dire enough sort to make the use of placebos unethical and potentially life-threatening.
The big debate around the Ebola trials focus on the ethics of using a placebo-medicated control group in trials that investigate medications that could save the lives of many. Indeed, one of the factors of such trials is comparing the mortality rate between the groups (Perrone). Surely an ethical boundary is being crossed here, since no Ebola sufferer would agree to a trial that is essentially a death sentence. In this case, I therefore believe that the use of placebos in trials is unethical.
On the other hand, the use of placebos in trials to test the efficacy of HIV drugs like AZT in the 1990s has proven greatly useful, since it meant the development of a new drug that could effectively treat the condition (Ethics in International Research, 1999). Since death was not imminent for any of the patients and the mortality rate was not the measure for efficacy, I feel that...
Jones (2009), on the other hand, points out that patient autonomy and informed consent comes into the crossfire when placebos are given.
There is no simple answer for the question about placebo use. One might conclude, however, that informed consent should play a primary role when life and death are at stake.
Lichtenberg, P., Heresco-Levy, P., and Nitzan, U. (2003, Jun. 2). The ethics of the placebo in clinical practice. Journal of Medical Ethics. 30 (6). Retrieved from: http://jme.bmj.com/content/30/6/551.full
Perrone, M. (2014, Nov. 12). Ebola drug testing sparks ethics debate. The Big Story. Retrieved from: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0e3ef8650e0b415d9b5006c0aa033ae3/ebola-drug-testing-sparks-ethics-debate
Walton, A.G. (2013, Mar. 22). Is it Ethical for Doctors to Prescribe a Placebo? Forbes. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2013/03/22/is-it-ethical-for-doctors-to-prescribe-placebo/
Placebos in Clinical Practice REINFORCING MIND-BODY LINK Medical dictionaries define placebo as a non-medication substance, prescribed or given to reinforce the patient's expectation to get well. Research on the effect of placebos is of great significance to healthcare professionals because of their widespread use. That widespread use draws from their effect in the improvement of a symptom or disease without specifically improving the condition under treatment. That effect, called the placebo effect,
double blind trial. This is a study where neither the researchers or the participants know what they will receive. First and foremost, it removes any potential for bias, as there are no preconceived notions from the participants or those studying the reactions of the trial. Such studies often also "follow less restrictive methodological standards than phase III studies in terms of patient selection, comedictation, and other design issues," (Muller,
Placebos Proposition Fact (Proposition: Placebos actual benefits patients) 1. You defend a proposition fact relevant significant a future proposition policy, argue values policies essay. IMPORTANT!! 2. The essay carefully strucutured standard parts a formal essay. Proposition of Fact Placebos can have actual benefits to patients Placebos are sham or fake treatments that are given to patients, in place of actual treatment. A doctor can decide to issue this kind of treatment to a
Conducting clinical trials in the developing world also enables drug companies to keep costs lower for the trials and therefore renders the final product more affordable. This is an outcome which benefits all individuals in the long run. Demand for drugs that will treat increasingly common global problems such as diabetes is expanding, and proponents of these trials further add that it is necessary and beneficial that the populations they
Global Healthcare Ethics and the Randomised HIV Trial Healthcare professional face a range of ethical issues in the pursuance of their vocation. In the context of HIV research and the conducting of research among vulnerable population, such as poor expectant mothers in developing countries, the compete of global health ethics should provide a foundation for the assessment of ethical practices, both in planning, undertaking, and reviewing the work (WHO, 2014; Stapleton
RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS 1Randomized Trials in EpidemiologyWei et al. (2017) conducted a randomized controlled trial to measure the effectiveness of an antimicrobial stewardship program. The program, which targeted caregivers and providers in China, sought to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for respiratory tract infections in children. The study was informed by the high rate of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing among pediatric patients in China. The study population was primary care hospitals in