title: [Autohemotherapy, state intervention and bioethics].
abstract: The increasingly frequent practice of autohemotherapy entails a potential risk to the health of individuals since it is scientifically unproven. There are practically no clinical studies showing the efficacy and safety of this procedure; only experimental research with questionable results from studies on human beings and animals. Over the last years, the sanitary surveillance area has expanded its preventive and risk control actions based upon a precautionary philosophy in the private as well as the public sphere. By observing the theoretical and practical reference points of the "four Ps" (prevention, protection, precaution and prudence), in accordance with the epistemology developed within Intervention Bioethics, sanitary surveillance actions are based upon legal administrative policing powers. These powers are understood to be the Public Administration's competence to set conditions on and restrict the use and benefit of goods, activities and individual rights, on behalf of the common well being of people or the State itself. The Brazilian State, through its sanitary surveillance policing powers at the three levels of government, has intervened in the practice of autohemotherapy. Considering the responsible State intervention in situations of collective interest, vulnerability and susceptibility, the present study proposed to analyze the practice of autohemotherapy in the light of sanitary surveillance actions and their relationship with the "four Ps" of Intervention Bioethics.
authors.affiliation: Cátedra Unesco de Bioética da Universidade de Brasília e na Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária do Ministério da Saúde - Anvisa, Brasília, DF.
authors.forename: Denise Ferreira
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Leite
authors.forename: Patrícia Fernanda Toledo
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Barbosa
authors.forename: Volnei
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Garrafa
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D026688:Bioethical Issues; D001804:Blood Transfusion, Autologous / Q000941:ethics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods; D001938:Brazil; D006801:Humans; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011314:Preventive Health Services; D015980:Public Health Practice / Q000941:ethics; D011640:Public Policy; D013219:State Government