Placebo-controlled Study - Ethics

Ethics

Bioethicists have raised diverse concerns on the use of placebos in modern medicine and research.

  • Disclosure. Rules that govern modern clinical trials insist on full disclosure to subjects who take part. Today, subjects are told that they may receive the drug being tested or they may receive the placebo.
  • Balancing Treatment vs. Research Objectives. Ethicists have also raised concerns on the use of placebos in those circumstances in which a standard treatment exists unless there are genuine doubts of the effectivity of such standard treatment. If standard treatments exist for the disease being studied in clinical trials, a standard treatment is always used in place of a placebo for serious diseases. In research experimental studies, the method of establishing a proper control group to eliminate the placebo effect has also been difficult, particularly for surgical and therapy interventions that are not pharmaceutical in nature. Notably, there has been much debate of whether to use a placebo pill or conduct a sham procedure as a control.

Most of these concerns have been addressed in the modern conventions for the use of placebos in research; however, some issues remain subject to debate.

Read more about this topic:  Placebo-controlled Study

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