[The precautionary principle and the deontology code]

Some is the mode of exercise or the speciality of the doctor, the medical act always involved risks for the patient. It is essential for a doctor to know the beneficial effects of therapeutic and capacity to measure the advantages and the disadvantages of them. The Code of ethics formally says it in several of its articles and points out the need for finding a right balance, "to recognize the limits of its competence, not to make run to the patient an unjustified risk". But the progress which does not cease accelerating is increasingly carrying risks. The prevention tries to draw aside from the known risks and identified and diligence, prudence and competence remain the essential virtues of the practitioner. The precaution challenges the decision maker until mentioning still unknown risks, which, if they are carried out, could engage its responsibility. This worrying progression causes interrogations within the medical profession. It do not have for the moment not satisfactory answers. This principle seems, in first analysis, more adapted to actions of public health than to an individual medical act. To measure risks for a definite population is with the possible rigour thanks to epidemiology. To prevent the totality of the risks incurred by an individual given following a medical decision would be to deny the nature even of the man, who is by definition an individual, testimoning of his personality, of his autonomy, and of his own identity.