Pharmacy Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This chapter explores the issue of the conflict (real or potential) between the ethical imperatives that should guide the pharmacist in the typical practicing of the profession (i.e. within a pharmacy) and the economic constraints derived from the business dimension of the pharmacy. Marrying service and business in a single profession, pharmacy is supposed to balance harmoniously its two sides, if not to subject business demands to the higher societal, ethical requirements. However, such a balancing exercise is rather like dancing on a rope, and ethics may be trumped by economics, a phenomenon deplored sometimes by pharmacy academics or hospital pharmacists, and by a part of community pharmacists as well. Economics may prevail over ethics in rough forms such as selling health risk products (as it was in the past for tobacco or alcohol) or in more elusive ones, such as longer work hours and shorter counselling times, promoting or dispensing needless or ineffective products (food supplements, cosmetics, etc.), silently refusing to provide or recommend lower cost generics, etc. Ethical research in the field of pharmacy has generally been scarce, and numerous knowledge gaps remain to be filled by future investigations.

Factors that influence pharmacists' efforts in addressing substance use in Nigeria: An exploratory study

“…1). Economic incentives could compromise a pharmacist's ethical commitment 53 For instance, a pharmacist may decide to sell products that pose health risk, like tobacco, to make money or recommend branded products instead of cheaper generic alternatives due to high financial gain. 53 Overall, these factors require consideration while promoting pharmacists' role in addressing substance use in Nigeria.…”