Ethics and The Hand of God in Medicine

Wikipedia.com defines a gift is a voluntary act, which does not require anything in return. Even though it involves possibly a social expectation of reciprocity, or a return in the form of prestige or power, a gift is meant to be free.

The proliferation of gift giving in the medical and pharmaceutical professions, however, may do more harm than what it originally and morally means; and while the United States recognize the negative implications of receiving and giving gifts, the Philippines,  welcome the act of mutually exchanging money, goods, etc. because it contributes to social cohesion among other things.

The article written by Rebecca Dresser is “old news.” For instance, an American who seeks drugs without a prescription at any pharmacy in the United States would be denied purchase because he or she would have to secure a prescription from a licensed healthcare professional first before any transaction can occur. In the same way, the Food and Drugs Administration, requires a healthcare professional to recommend specific drugs to his or her patient. Otherwise, if the patient expires, an autopsy report would have revealed what kind of drug he or she ingested that lead to his or her death.

Thus, if would be nearly impossible for a HCP in the United States to liberally dispose of a prescription without him or her becoming aware of certain legal implications that would have devoid him or her of a license to practice medicine in the country.

Dresser, in her article, said that, “although clinicians deny the possibility of inappropriate bias, experiments in social psychology show that self-interest influences human evaluations of fairness.” Dresser, in this case, realizes the indubitable existence of a covert gift giving practice that “might” have occurred prior to a HCP preference for a certain drug over others. Dresser, instead, highlights the long-term psychological implications of gift giving.

The article, furthermore, highlights ethical considerations that encompass the act of gift giving. The practice itself creates a moral dilemma where at the far end of the spectrum is the patient who has been prescribed a drug that has been “pluralized” by the medical representative to the HCP.

For instance, on May 27, 2008, a scandal recently shook the pharmaceutical industry and the entire nation. The report questioned the credibility of HCPs to prescribe whitening pills to those who wish to improve their appearance.

The report exposed the real contents of L-gluthathione, the active ingredient in Lucida DS whitening pills, and questioned the real motives behind United Shelter Health Products in the manufacturing of Lucida DS. The company, in this case, solicited the endorsement of big name celebrities in the country to promote the drug to be as effective and therapeutic. In order to do this, USHP paid astronomical talent fees to the endorsers, who are not long-term users of the drug dupe consumers because they are big name celebrities. As far as medical testing and experiment are concerned, they did not undergo such treatments to prove the efficacy of the drug in question. USHPs failure to meet BFAD starndards, moreover, forced them to file a lawsuit against the news anchor who delivered the report to “mask” its nonetheless suspicious marketing and manufacturing practice.

Gift giving in form of talent fees, here, directly exposes the motives of USHP, who does not even need HCP to prescribe their products, does not even follow medical testing protocols, but instead rely on hyped marketing strategies to sell their products and compete with credible whitening pills.

So, are doctors or pharmaceutical companies gods?

In a manner of speaking no—but they would like to maintain an appearance that they are. Doctors today are addicted to technology, luxuries, and pleasure, wealth and prominence in the community. Thus they are slowly evolving into a greedy and a corrupt force potentially capable of unimaginable chaos in spite of the fact that a majority of doctors are still honest and noble yet a weaker force in a society, which allows the proliferation of gift giving to infect their “Hippocratic Oath” (Selvakumran, 2003).

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