To the Editor.
—The recent marketing of a new intraocular lens had a disturbing wrinkle that deserves comment. Several ophthalmologists sent the copyrighted advertising material in their mailings to patients and were associated in newspaper articles as designated surgeons for a given geographic area. What is wrong with this perceived alliance? The lens through which this issue must be viewed is an ethical lens, one that prevents professional myopia. If physicians align themselves with products (eg, companies), then patients have every right to question the fiduciary (trusting) relationship that our profession has had as one of its essential elements and from which we derive the societally given privilege of being a profession.1,2 Loss of this fiduciary relationship will lead to deprofessionalization.3,4The trust between physician and patient is critical and is being weakened by (among other factors) the technologic explosion. We do not need ophthalmologists adding to our