Use the articles and links attached to answer questions.
1. In the Nuremberg Code, find at least one point that focused on the research subject’s welfare and one point that focused on the research subject’s autonomy.
2. In the Belmont Report, find at least one point that focused on the research subject’s welfare and one point that focused on the research subject’s autonomy.
3. What was so ethically wrong with the Tuskegee syphilis study? (Use the four principles of bioethics in your ethical analysis.)
4. What sorts of ethical problems can happen when US medical researchers conduct medical research in developing countries? Specifically, what was good and bad about the AZT studies in Africa as discussed by Glantz and his co-authors?
5. In your own words, explain the proposal offered by Glantz and his co-authors for how medical researchers should conduct their research in developing countries. Do you think this is a good proposal: why or why not? Do you have any practical or ethical concerns for how the proposal would work?
—–
Discussion post 1
This is one of the most important points made in the Belmont Report, which was established as a research-ethics policy in the 1970s after the public revelation of the Tuskegee syphilis study. The ethical worry is about can go wrong when people who think they are getting clinical care are actually research participants, or when people running a medical study treat it as though they’re engaged in patient care. Blurring the key differences between the two can be dangerous and unethical.
So…how, exactly? Let’s brainstorm from the perspectives of the different parties involved:
- Q1: For a participant/patient, how are things importantly different whether they are a participant in medical research vs. a patient receiving clinical care?
- Q2: For a researcher/clinician, how are things importantly different whether what they’re doing is medical research vs. what they’re doing is patient care?
Discussion post 2
Before you read the articles for this week, what — if anything — had you ever heard about the Tuskegee syphilis study? What sorts of historical, medical, and ethical information about the Tuskegee study did you learn from our reading that caught your attention? Do you have any follow-up questions? If so, this is a great place to ask. I will do my best to help sketch things out further. I invite others to join in too.
