Placebos A Violation of Trust?

By Sarannia Ragulan, U5 Aleph

Is medicine the only way to cure illnesses? For decades, the answer has been proved to be no - though it still isn’t widely believed. Time, and time again, the power of our subconscious mind has been proven to be more than capable of curing many illnesses our body faces. However, it takes a great deal of self-will, strength and determination for this to happen. And this is where ‘The Placebo Effect’ comes in. We are growing up in a world where pharmacy and medicine are fast growing

sectors in industry, with people being extremely dependent on medicine - in fact, overestimating the power of it. I am, by no means, denying that medicine can be very useful - just that there is a more effective cure than this. In 1957, a Stage 4 cancer patient, Mr Wright, after miraculously recovering from Stage 4 cancer a first time, repeated this miracle a second time, only after being injected with distilled water, which he was told by his doctor, Dr West, to be a newly created drug which would nearly definitely cure him. Unfortunately, 2 months later, upon finding that this ‘drug’ wasn’t actually effective, cancer came back to him, and

having lost all hope, it took him at last. This story, along with so many others, are all examples of The Placebo Effect. And although, this may seem to be the ultimate cure to all illnesses to some of you, to others, it may seem to be unethical. Not unethical in the sense that The Placebo Effect is ineffective or harmful to the body; it is not uncommon for this to be used by doctors and it also reduces the likelihood of any undesirable side effects. Some people see the receiving of a placebo effect as dishonest on the doctor’s part. They see this type of treatment to be a violation on the right of a patient expecting to be fully informed about their treatment. This view has caused a lot of controversy regarding the issue of placebo treatments. A very effective treatment, with quite a high success rate, yet also seen to be dishonest - a breach of honesty in a doctor-patient relationship. Some believe that placebos should only be used if the patient is aware of this and has given their consent to it. This regulation is followed by the AMA, the American Medical Association:

“Physicians may use [a] placebo for diagnosis or treatment only if the

Some people see this type of treatment to be a violation on the right of a patient expecting to be fully informed about their treatment.

patient is informed of and agrees to its use.”

This may seem to contradict the concept behind a placebo, but it doesn’t have to deteriorate the patient’s recovery. The idea of being treated and tended to by a doctor will have very similar effects, on the patient, to the placebo. However, if this disclosure is kept continuously, it may lead to a decrease in the rate and effectiveness of the patient’s recovery, along with the placebo effect starting to disappear. Those in favour of the placebo, may say that the idea of an placebo manipulating a patient’s thoughts and ideas of their treatment is actually overstated. The complete honesty between a doctor and patient doesn’t ever result in the patient’s recovery influenced by nothing but the treatment. The doctor always has an effect on the patient’s recovery along the bio-psychosocial continuum. They do this through their personality, speech, body language and other factors. Keeping this in mind, the placebo therefore can be seen only as a deception of the patient’s trust in their doctor if one looks at it as purely a biomedical pursuit. After having looked at both the favourable and unfavourable effects of the placebo, I believe that as long as it is used purely as a method of diagnosis or treatment, the placebo effect isn’t in any way unethical and can result in a greater recovery of a

patient than even expected.