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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4893

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

 

Publication type: Journal Article

Caplan A, Elliott C.
Is it ethical to use enhancement technologies to make us better than well?
PLoS Med 2004 Dec; 1:(3):e52
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=15630464


Abstract:

BACKGROUND TO THE DEBATE: A variety of biomedical technologies are being developed that can be used for purposes other than treating disease. Such “enhancement technologies” can be used to improve our appearance and regulate our emotions, with the goal of feeling “better than well.” While these technologies can help people adapt to their rapidly changing lifestyles, their use raises important ethical issues.

Keywords:
Biomedical Technology/ethics* Biomedical Technology/trends* Drug Industry* Emotions Esthetics Ethics, Medical Humans Life Style* Marketing of Health Services Social Conditions

 

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963