Conducting & Reading Research

1
Chapter 5

• Ethical Concerns
• in Research

2
Basics in Ethics

• Examples of unethical conduct in research
• Regulation of research and protection of research
  participants
• Scientific misconduct in reporting

3
Examples of unethical conduct

• Nazi Germany experimentation during World War II
• freezing experiments
• malaria experiments
• high-altitude experiments
• Tuskegee syphilis study in Alabama

4
Regulation

• Ethics description of human behavior as right or
  wrong
• Situational ethics it depends
• 1947
• Helsinki Declaration
• Belmont Report (1979)

5
Belmont Report

• Current federal regulations
• Respect for persons
• Beneficence
• Justice

6
Code of Federal Regulations (45 CFR 46)

• DHHS regulations made into law
• Stipulates that protocols must be reviewed by
  Institutional Review Board (IRB)
• Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP)
• provides educational materials

7
Informed consent

• Subjects made fully aware of nature and purpose
  of research project
• Consent is voluntarily given
• Participant has legal capacity to give consent
• Responsibility for obtaining consent rests with
  researcher

8
Vulnerable groups

• Children
• Prisoners
• Pregnant women

9
Privacy and Confidentiality

• capacity of individuals to control
  when and under what conditions others will have
  access to their behaviors, beliefs, values
• ability to link information
  or data to a persons identity

10
Research Involving Animals

• Similar institutional review boards to approve
  protocols
• Training courses for all personnel using animals
  for research

11
Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

• Subject risk minimized
• Subject risk reasonable to benefits
• Selection of subjects is equitable
• Informed consent is obtained
• Informed consent is documented
• Research plan provides for monitoring safety of
  subjects
• Steps are taken to protect privacy and maintain
  confidentiality

12
Disclosure of Research Findings

• Published reports must be credible
• Misconduct
• fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other
  practices in proposing, conducting, or reporting
  research
• retaliation against a person who reports
  suspected misconduct and who has not acted in bad
  faith

13

• Plagiarism presentation of ideas or works of
  others as your own without giving credit
• Authorship should be limited to those who have
  made significant contribution to the research