Wiki Page, STEM | 12K | Research 1 | Practical Research 1: Ethical Issues in Research

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2021-09-17T20:07:29+08:00

In conducting research, some ethical issues must be considered. These are animal rights and welfare, human rights and scientific misconduct.

Animal Rights and Welfare in Research

The principles on animal use in research are based on the Philippine Republic Act No. 8485, otherwise known as the Animal Welfare Act of 1998. The purpose of this act is to protect and promote the welfare of all animals in the Philippines.

To enforce the law and facilitate the regulations of animal welfare, an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) is encouraged to be formed by research institutions to oversee the process done on research involving animals.

In the Philippines, all IACUC are registered in the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Department of Agriculture. Before any animal study can commence, the researchers must submit their proposals to the IACUC for review and evaluation.

Human Experimentation

The conduct of biomedical research (or human experimentation) involving human participants raises a lot of ethical and legal issues that have concerned philosophers, lawyers, policy makers, scientists, and clinicians for many years. The infamous Nazi medical experiment and Japan’s Unit 371 are examples of unethical experimentation on human subjects. Watch the following videos to learn more of these human experiments during the WWII.

Japan's Secret World War II Death Lab (2003)

The Twins of Auschwitz – Newsnight

In 1946, 23 doctors were tried for the medical experiments and related crimes committed during the Holocaust. Thus, the Nuremberg Code was developed in order to account for medical experimentation and research ethics.

Nuremberg Code

the first major international document to provide guidelines on research ethics. It made voluntaryconsent a requirement in clinical research studies, emphasizing that consent can be voluntary only if participants are able to consent; they are free from coercion (i.e., outside pressure); and they comprehend the risks and benefits involved. The Code also states that researchers should minimize risk and harm, make sure that risks do not significantly outweigh potential benefits, use appropriate study designs, and guarantee participants′ freedom to withdraw at any time.

Human Rights in Research

Often, research studies involve human respondents. Ethical considerations must be strictly followed to ensure that humans are not harmed and exploited.

1. Right to voluntary participation. All human respondents should participate in a research study out of his free will and should not be forced or coerced to participate.

2. Right to informed consent. All respondents should be informed of all the procedures, potential risks, and benefits that the research would bring.

3. Right to be protected from harm. The respondent shall not be subjected to anything that may cause inconvenience or physical, emotional and psychological harm.

4. Right to confidentiality. All personal information extracted from the respondents shall be made confidential and should not be disclosed to the public at all condition.

5. Right to anonymity. A respondent may choose not to disclose his or her identity to anyone, including the researchers themselves.

NO HARM TO THE PARTICIPANTS

Research should not cause harm to participants or researchers, and preferably it should benefit society.

If you are not careful about how you do your research from the proposal making stage, you might commit the following types of harm: physical, psychological, financial, and social harm.

1. Physical harm - when a person feels physical risk/s that will endanger his/her body brought about by (his/her participation in) the research (e.g. extraction of blood, exhaustion).

2. Psychological harm - when a person feels risk/s that will endanger the respondent’s cognition, emotions, and/or mental functioning brought about by (his/her participation in) the research (e.g. depression, confusion).

3. Financial harm - when a person feels risk/s that will endanger the respondent’s financial condition brought about by (his/her participation in) the research (e.g. loss of a day’s salary).

4. Social harm - when a person feels risk/s that will endanger the respondent’s social circumstances brought about by (his/her participation in) the research (e.g. threatened, stigma).

EXAMPLE:

Dalton’s (1959) study on American Managers and their Unofficial Action

Dalton’s main strategy for preventing harm to his participants is to protect their anonymity, but the reader is left in no doubt as to the seriousness of consequences for individuals concerned if their identities were to have been discovered. As Dalton explains, these individuals’ gave information and aid that, if generally known, would have jeopardized their careers’ (1959: 275). One of the key ethical issues in this study concerns the lack of informed consent, as participants were in no position to be able to judge whether or not to become involved in the research, as they were only vaguely aware of the nature of Dalton’s interest. Furthermore, they were almost certainly unaware of the risk of harm that could result from the study in relation to their employment prospects.