OCY and Moodle article

Both Our Cancer Year and the Almasi, Stafford, Kravitz, and Mansfield article explained the significance in the placebo effect in terms of patients’ knowledge. I agree completely with the idea that the brain is a very powerful force and is capable of influencing one’s physical conditions. However, patients should be fully informed about the procedures and medications that they are given. Everyone has a right to know what is going on in their own body. In Our Cancer Year, the doctors kept Joyce and Harvey informed about most medical situations but when Dr. Cantor is too busy to inform Joyce about Harvey’s conditions, Joyce is more than worried. Most people are scared of the unknown and illness is already scary as it is. Joyce would have been more at easy if she had gotten details from Dr. Cantor, good or bad. In the article, Richard Kravitz states that Direct to Consumer Advertisements should be “regulated, not banned.” Sometimes it is to the patients’ advantage to be half way informed.

                From a strict advertising stand point, I completely understand that it is in the nature of advertising to persuade rather than inform. In a perfect world the product or idea (whatever you are trying to “sell”) would be able to sell itself but that it not the case. Consumers always have the right to full disclosure but at the same time, a business is a business. I agree with Kravitz when he says that DTCA should be regulated.