Abstract
Advertising in the etymological sense refers to the action of drawing attention to a product, in order to accomplish the goal of selling it. Advertising of health-related services or products can be done in an open or a disguised form. When advertised openly, health-related products can be directed to the final consumer, or the health professional, being the former the most frequent target of such strategy. When the advertising occurs in a disguised form, it is usually camouflaged as education, and, in this case, the health professional is the preferred target. Although any form of advertising of health-related products may represent ethical problems, it is the advertising disguised as education the most dangerous threat to the global community, because it is not recognized as advertising or marketing, and it is responsible for a great part of the social burden that the cost of pharmaceutical products represent. The bioethical approach of principlism may be used to put advertising in perspective. All four principles (respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice) are hurt by advertising, both open and disguised. However, it is intervention bioethics that is the most appropriate approach to take action against the consequences of advertising of health-related products, because of its more political nature. It is not enough to disclose conflicts of interest. All disguised advertising should be banned.
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Paranhos, F.R.L. (2016). Advertising. In: ten Have, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09483-0_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09483-0_10
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