title: [The precautionary principle and the obligation of medical action].
abstract: Since Antiquity, medicine has been based upon the principle of prudence. In recent years, the principle of precaution has stolen over the medical conscience and has especially been forced on doctors under pressure from a Society searching for a new Holy Grail; the utopia of zero risk and the fear for magical power of an omnipotent medicine. The principle of precaution should be capable of warding off all these evils of techno-scientific progress applied to Health. Thus, in a few years, a new norm has established itself first for the environment but which has today extended to the domain of medical decisions. It is essential that the medical authorities attract the attention of politics and of the judiciary to the dangers of blindly transposing the principle of precaution in ecology to the world of medicine. The risks of deviation are numerous, the eventual perverse effects would be detrimental to patients and health security would be endangered by paralysis and conservatism. Medicine is neither the Art of Curing nor the Art of not Harming, ... it is the Art of Caring! ...
authors.affiliation: Département de Gynécologie-Obstétrique, Université de Liège-CHR de la Citadelle, Belgique.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Foidart
mesh_terms: D003675:Defensive Medicine / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D013677:Medical Laboratory Science / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D011634:Public Health