Pharmacovigilance: A brief glimpse

Abstract

One of the ethical foundations of medical practice is the injunction: primum non nocere or 'first do no harm'. This is the basis of the ethical principle 'non-maleficence' in the principle-based approach to bioethics. However, as all practitioners know, every substance (including plain unadulterated H2O) can have unwanted or harmful effects - which are dependent on a variety of factors.