When I use a word . . . . Taking therapeutic care.

ABSTRACT

In healthcare there are different forms of taking care or taking precautions. When using a therapeutic intervention, one takes care by implementing it appropriately. When the appropriate intervention is pharmacological that means giving an appropriate formulation of a medication in an appropriate dosage regimen. If the intervention might cause harm, but the benefitharm balance is favourable, one might do nothing apart from monitoring or one might introduce a preventive strategy, such as the use of mesna when giving an oxazaphosphorine such as cyclophosphamide. Vaccination and contraception are both examples of precautionary measures that have an excellent benefitharm balance. But when the benefitharm balance of an intervention is unfavourable the precaution to be taken is avoidance of the intervention. That, and only that, form of precaution, avoidance to avoid harm, is a defining feature of the precautionary principle.