Nature

With regards pharmaceutical ethics, it is known to many that pharmaceutical companies often engage in bribery and deception o make their products look flawless while being marketed. Since this is an ethical dilemma, the conflict lies on the moral high ground of the people who runs the pharmaceutical companies.

The position of the writer on this issue would be that animals should not unwittingly suffer in these laboratory experiements. Ensuring the safety of the people is the responsibility of the pharmaceutical companies but they must not harm anything in the process of protecting the consumers.

As with pharmaceutical ethics, the position of the writer is that only factual information should be given to medicine consumers and that the pharmaceutical companies have the moral obligation to provide so.

A number of academic journals, such as the Regulatory Phamacology and Toxicology (Baldrick) already claim that animal testing may not be that accurate in protecting the human from drug toxicology. The animal rights group PETA also believes that animals should not suffer in laboratories. Besides the fact that there is an existing law that regulates the treatment of animals in research (Animal Welfare Act), science needs a more valid and efficient way of testing the safety of drugs while protecting the animals at the same time. 

On the other hand, this pharmaceutical ethics research reveals that 

Since this research will be focusing on the efffectivity of using laboratory rats, further research on this topic can be focused on the alternative tesing procedures for new drugs without using and harming animals. The future researcher who will take up this task might be interested in finding out how the testing procedures differ and whether utilizing an animal tester makes the drug safer before it is released in the market. 

About pharmaceutical ethics, the unanswered questions would be about how long the pharmaceutical companeis have been involved in this kind of dirty tricks to promote their businesses.

Bibliography

Animal Welfare Act. Government and Professional Sources. 22 December 2009. 8 May 2010 

httpawic.nal.usda.govnal_displayindex.phpinfo_center3tax_level3tax_subject1

82topic_id1118level3_id6735.

This website maintains a particular webpage wherein a copy of the Animal Welfare Act is posted. This is a reliable source since it is a government website concerned directly with the animal welfare. The Animal Welfare Information Center of the US Department of Agriculture is a gold mine of information about the use of animals in researches and the ethical implications of such practice. Furthermore, it is important to include a copy of this federal law into the analysis of this topic because besides legal issues, there are also existing legalities in laboratory testing. One of these is the recording of the number of animals being used in researches. As of the moment, an estimate of over a million animals being used and killed in laboratory experiments every year.

Baldrick, Paul. Juvenile animal testing in drug development - Is it useful Regulatory Toxicology and 

Pharmacology (2010).

This resource imparts crucial ideas on the methodology of drug administration on animals and how it endangers their lives without really ensuring the protection of the humans who will be using the drug. It enables the researcher to dig deeper into the issues of using animals for drug testing and weighs the importance of saving an animal vis--vis the importance of the people. The author, Paul Baldrick, is known in the field of pharmacological research. His work was published in a reputable journal for pharmacologists and toxicologists and is therefore an authoritative source of information on the subject of pharmaceutical ethics. His qualifications make him an invaluable source of information about the topic of animal testing in drug testing.

Kassirer, Jerome P. Pharmaceutical Ethics. Open Medicine (2007) E58-59.

This is actually a review for the book Ethics and the Pharmaceutical Industry, edited by Michael A Santoro and Thomas M. Gorrie. It tackled different issues involving the pharmaceutical world such as the use of deception in advertising and pressuring health care providers to prescribe certain brands in return for money bribes and the like. And very important issues are also discussed such as intellectual property rightswhich has been a disputed area for decades alreadyand the selling of generic drugs. It is very important to address these issues because these cloud the vision of the pharmaceutical industry. Kassirer is an important resource because he enlightened the researcher about the real-world issues of profiteering in this industry.

PETA. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. 2010. 8 May 2010 

httpwww.peta.orgactioncentertesting.asp.

PETA, as stated in its website, is the largest animal rights organization in the world. One of the operations of this not for profit organization is on protecting the animals being used in laboratories. The organization believes that killing millions of laboratory animals for testing and research purposes is not right. Obviously, the animals do not deserve being subjected to conditions such as laboratory testing for all sorts of products (i.e. medicine, cosmetics, fragrance). Another point for consideration is that even if laboratory experiments on these animals were performed and were satisfactory, animals still have a different biological structure which makes animal drug tests unreliable and dangerous. So, at the end of the day, we are left with millions of animals getting killed and a human populace still subjected to the perils of unreliable medicinal and cosmetic products.

Edgar, Sam Salek and Andrew. Pharmaceutical Ethics. 2002. Wiley Interscience. 8 May 2010 

httpwww3.interscience.wiley.comauthorservices.

If there is a single book the tackles every ethical issue in the pharmaceutical world then it is this book. Written in a straightforward manner, in discusses every single aspect of the industry from the research of new drug components to the manufacturing, the marketing, advertising and prescription of the drugs to the patients. There are indeed many ethical dilemmas when dealing with drug production and marketing and the information that are written in this book gives us a greater perspective on the dynamics of each factor. Also, the researcher believes that it has up-to-date information in its pages. This book by Edgar and Salek will surely be recommended when researching about drug ethics.

Kintanar, Dr. Quintin. PHAP code of pharmaceutical marketing practices. pna.org.ph. 8 May 2010 

www.pna.org.phfilesphap.ppt.

This power point presentation reveals that there is a confluence of factors involved in ethical dilemmas in the pharmaceutical marketing chain. And although there is an existing ethics code that overlooks that practices of medical professionals and pharmaceutical product dealers, it will take time to prove unethical conduct unless obviously seen as unethical. The good thing about this resource is that the slides are very simplistic but are full of information. It allows a person to digest what the ethics code means, what healthcare professionals should do in order to uphold their moral high ground and how to avoid conflicts of interest and unethical conduct while practicing within the industry.