One of my biggest pet peeves is advertisements for bogus health-related products that are deceptively presented as news stories. These appear regularly in many newspapers, including my own local paper The Tacoma News Tribune, and they typically fill a full half page. They usually include the words “advertisement” or “paid advertisement”… read more "Fake News about Health Products"
Followup: Benedetti on Placebo Ethics
A few months ago I wrote about Fabrizio Benedetti’s research on the neurobiology of the placebo response, and a discussion about placebos and ethics ensued in the comments. Now Dr. Benedetti has written about that issue in a “Perspective” article in the journal World Psychiatry, “The placebo response: science versus ethics and the… read more "Followup: Benedetti on Placebo Ethics"
Science-Based Medicine Meets Medical Ethics
There are four main principles in medical ethics: Autonomy Beneficence Non-maleficence Justice Autonomy means the patient has the right to consent to treatment or to reject it. Autonomy has to be balanced against the good of society. What if a patient’s rejection of treatment or quarantine allows an epidemic to… read more "Science-Based Medicine Meets Medical Ethics"