Research Methods

Chapter 3 - Ethical Research

Ethics

What is ethics?

  • Responsibility of researchers to be honest and respectful to all individuals who are affected by their research studies or their reports of the studies’ results

  • Guided by the American Psychological Association’s ethical principles for research among others 

Categories of Ethical Guidelines

  • Two basic categories

    • Ensuring welfare and dignity of participants/subjects

    • Accuracy in reporting research results

  • Researchers are in a position of control over participants

    • But have no right to abuse this power or to harm the participants or subjects, physically, emotionally or psychologically 

Historical highlights of treatment of human participants

  • Nuremberg Code (1947)

    • Ten guidelines for the ethical treatment of human subjects in research

    • In response to the horrific medical trials conducted on people without consent, especially twins

  • Milgram's obedience study (1963)

    • Sought to discover how far subjects will go to obey an authority figure

  • Declaration of Helsinki (1964- present)

    • Provided international ethics guidelines for medical research

  • US Surgeon General (late 1960s)

    • Orders federally funded research proposal from the public health service to be reviewed for ethical treatment of subjects

  • National Research Act ( 1970s)

    • Mandated regulations for protection of subjects 

Tuskegee

  • Peter Buxtun, an epidemiologist was a whistle-blower,  and filed a complaint in 1966, and again in 1969

Holmesburg Prison experiments

  • In 1951 dr albvert kligman was a professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania med school

  • Creator of Retin-A

  • Tested various chemicals on the skin of poor african american population in the episode for the pay of a dollar a day

  • Creams, biological agents such as dioxin (agent orange), hallucinatory drugs, toxic chemicals, drugs, cosmetics, etc. 

Belmont Report

  • The Belmont report (1979):ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human research

    • Beneficence

    • Autonomy (respect for persons)

    • Justice 

Major Ethical Issues

  • Deception

    • May be allowed comes in two forms

      • Passive deception

      • Active deception

        • Confederates, cover story

    • Guidelines

      • Justification: benefit must outweigh the risk

      • Cannot conceal factors that may cause physical harm or emotional distress

      • Must provide a debriefing after participation 

The Institution Review Board (IRB)

  • Each institution that receives federal funds must have an IRB

    • Responsible for reviewing research at the institution

      • Must have at least 5 members

      • One member must be from outside the institution

    • All research conducted by students, faculty, and staff must be reviewed

Types of research and the IRB

  • Exempt research (no review needed)

    • Research in which there is no risk in harm

  • Minimal risk research

    • When the risk of harm in no greater that risk encountered in daily life or routine physical or psychological tests

    • Routine review conducted by the IRB

  • Greater than minimal risk research

    • Thorough review conducted by the IRB

Misrepresentation

  • The explicit effort of a researcher to falsify or misrepresent data (rather than an error)

  • Why do researchers commit fraud?

    • To remain competitive in their academic environment

    • Concern that if their research is not published they may fail to earn tenure (“publish to perish”)

Data Fabrication

  • Dr Dipak K Das

    • January 11, 2012 connecticut health center announced that a review board has found guilty of 145 counts of fabrication or falsification of data

      • Red wine and heart health research

  • Bharat Aggarwal, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston

    • Role of inflammation in cancer and the anti-cancer effects of spices and herbs, particularly those of cucumin (a chemical constituent of the spice turmeric)

  • Dong Pyou Han

    • Added inhuman blood components to rabbit blood to make it appear as through a vaccine he was working on had exhibited ant - HIV activity

    • Was sentenced to 57 months imprisonment for fabricating data

    •  he was fined 7.2 million

  • Andre Wakefield 

    • Falsely claimed a link between measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism and for his subsequent anti- vaccination activism

    • Planned to capitalize on the MMR vaccination scare provoked by his paper by forming a corporation that would profit from “litigation-driven testing” 

    • Responsible for resurgence of measles and antivax movement

  • William T Summerlin

    • Admitted to the committee that he had darkened the skin of two white pice with a felt tip pen to make it appear that the mice had expected skin grafts form genetically different animals, and that on four occasions he had misrepresented the results of experimental transplants of human corneas into rabbit eyes

Plagiarism

  • The unethical representation of someone else's ideas or words as one’s own

    • Can occur on a variety of different levels

    • May be a deliberate act or can occur without your direct knowledge

  • Repeating large sections of text verbatim is clearly plagiarism even with a citation

  • Changing a few words is still plagiarism, even with a citation

  • Changing most of the wording but keeping the same structure and order of ideas is a step toward paraphrasing but is still plagiarism, even with a citation 

Research Methods

  • Methods of knowing 

    • Tenacity

      • “We’ve always done it this way”

      • Information is accepted as true because it has always been believed or because superstition supports it

      • EX: saying that acupuncture has been around for thousands of years, therefore it works

    • Intuition

      • “Gut feeling” determines whether information is accepted

      • Should we trust our gut?

      • Prone to bias

    • Authority 

      • A person relies on information or answers from an expert in the subject area

      • Problems with unquestioning trust in the authority figure and, therefore, accept information from the authority without doubt or challenge 

    • Rationalism

      • Logic, facts are based accepted premises

        • All 3 year old children are afraid of the dark

        • Amy is a 3 year old girl

        • Therefore, Amy is afraid of the dark

      • Premises are known or assumed to be true

    • Empiricism

      • Isolated to your own experience of reality, which is altered by prior knowledge, expectations, feelings, or beliefs

  • Scientific method

    • Observe

    • Question

    • Research

    • Hypothesize

    • Experiment

    • Test hypothesis

    • Draw conclusions

    • Report