file.newsgroup.med.59571 Maven / Gradle / Ivy
From: [email protected] (Jack Hamilton)
Subject: Re: Legality of placebos?
[email protected] wrote:
>
>
>How is it that placebos are legal? It would seem to me that if, as a patient,
>you purchase a drug you've been prescribed and it's just sugar (or whatever),
>there's a few legal complications that arise:
>
> 1.
>If you have been diagnosed with a condition and you aren't given accepted
>treatment for it, it seems like intentional medical malpractice.
A placebo is an accepted treatment at times.
> 2.
>A placebo should fall, legally, under the label of quackery (why not?)
Why should it? Placebos are effective under certain circumstances. That's
why they're used.
Actually, I don't know know anyone who has actually gotten a "sugar pill".
I don't know how it could be done, since prescription drugs are always
labeled, and it's easy enough to find out what's in a pill if you have the
name.
It's more common to prescribe a drug which is effective for something, just
not for what you have. Antibiotics for viral infections are the most
common such placebo.
> 3.
>Getting what you pay for. (Deceptive "bait and switch" to an extreme...). False
>advertising (what if McDonalds didn't put 100% pure beef in their hamburgers?)
I'm not sure what you mean by this. What do you think you're paying for?
You're not entitled to a prescription drug just because you pay for a
doctor's appointment.
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Jack Hamilton KD6TTL [email protected] PO Box 281107 SF, CA 94128 USA