Examples Of Ethical Counterarguments

Ethical Counterarguments Two ethical arguments are sometimes advanced to justify the use of placebos when effective therapies exist. First, one can argue that withholding an accepted treatment may not lead to serious harm. For example, treating pain or nausea with a placebo may cause no long-term adverse effects, and the patient can call attention to any treatment failure or even choose to drop out of the study. Nevertheless, although withholding an accepted treatment may occasionally seem innocuous, allowing investigators to do so runs counter to the ethical principle that every patient, including those in a control group, should receive either the best available treatment or a new treatment thought to be as good or better. Instead, it concedes