Sharp conflicts are now . Patients are learning to press for answers. Patients' bills of rights require that they be informed about their condition and about for treatment. Many doctors to provide such information. Yet even in hospitals with the most eloquent bill of rights, believers in benevolent deception continue their age-old practices. Colleagues may disapprove but objecting. Nurses may bitterly resent having to take part, , in deceiving patients, but feel powerless to take a stand. There is urgent need to this issue openly. Not only in medicine, but in other professions as well, practitioners may find themselves repeatedly in difficulty where serious consequences seem only through deception. Yet the public be wary of professional deception, for such practices are peculiarly likely to become deeply rooted, to spread, and to trust. Neither in medicine, nor in law, government, or the social sciences can there be comfort in the old saying, " ."