Ethics can be defined as the study and philosophy of human conduct, with an emphasis of determining right and wrong (Ferrell & Fraedrich 2010). Ethics are an individual belief system that consists of knowing what is right and acceptable and what is wrong. While it is true that ethics is closely linked with law, regulations and rules, it does not go against research and does not hinder scientific progress. Woo-Suk Hwang and his team paint a picture of the rampant fraud and ethical violations that occurs in the field of biological research and testing.
The implications of scientific fraud and embezzlement move beyond the world of pure research to the area of public policy. Here fraud can become a matter of immediate practical significance (Erwin, Gendin & Kleiman 1994). The violation of the bioethics law, fraud and embezzlement by Woo-Suk Hwang is a case in point.
Ethical transgressions carried out by Hwang and his team are far beyond the misuse of funds allocated for research. There is gross misconduct and research misbehaviour on the part of his team. The research carried out by Woo-Suk Hwang and his team involved conducting of research and experiments regarding the field of cloning. A number of ethical violations arise from the way in which Hwang and his team go about conducting the research.
Other ethical violations by Hwang include the embezzlement of US$3 million and using the funds to buy himself a car and gifts for politicians, intentional fabrication of data to apply for research funds and the violation of the bioethics law that outlaws the purchase of eggs for research. Hwang broke the law given the means by which he obtained the eggs used for the research; he seemed to have coerced his junior researchers into donating...
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Since the inception of this mode of research, peoples’ perception of what constitutes moral behavior towards patients and specifically harvesting cells from patients has changed. Over time, other doctors would take cells from patients without patient consent and use them for research. Coming from this, people began to think about how ethical this was, and especially if the potential for scientific or medical advances outweighs the injustices imposed by the lack of obtaining patient consent. One could argue that in the area of ethical behavior and medical advances, it might be necessary and acceptable to take cells or tissue samples without patient consent. And even though these cells and the research of these cells might not affect the patient, what advantages and disadvantages could come from obtaining or not obtaining patient consent?
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One of the biggest incentives to perform scientific research is the acclaim that comes from making novel discoveries. For some, this is the driving force behind their work and can cause a conflict of interest that sometimes overrides the needs of the patient in cases with unethical actors. This is most relevant to case of John Darsee. To get data for his publications he would often falsify results and would perform experimental stent procedures on unknowing patients. Darsee’s ambitions were put above the health and wellness of the patients he had taken an oath to protect.
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Advancements in medical technology can be associated in great part to human experimentation. It is widely known that medicine created for humans, in order to be proven effective, must undergo human clinical trials. When this form of experimentation is voluntary it benefits all of humanity. It just so happens that unfortunately, sometimes volunteers are misinformed of the dangers of the trial or are tested without their knowledge. This world wide issue has been attempted to be remedied through laws and regulations, but loopholes can still be found within them. Time has proved to the world that these laws are simply not enough. Stricter laws should be enacted to prevent the world's history of unethical human experimentation from repeating itself.
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Looking beyond the Nuremberg Code and applying it to modern medical research ethics, there are many challenges that it poses. Many have argued that the Code tries to provide for all unforeseen events, which restricts the researcher by requiring him to anticipate every situation, demanding the impossible. The most important contribution of the Code is the first principle, which says that voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. The subject involved should have legal capacity to give consent, should have free power of choice, as well as sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the experiment. This restricts that populations upon which some experiment may be conducted, since many do not have “legal capacity”. For instance, studies of mental illness and children’s diseases have been curtailed because neither of these populations has the legal capacity to give consent. Another group of people, prisoners, are never really able to give voluntary consent since they might be enticed by financial rewards, special treatment, and the hope of early release in exchange for participating in the human experimentation projects. British biostatitcian Sir Austin Bradford Hill also questioned whether it was important to inform a research subject who was receiving a placebo since it does...
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The history of medical research in the twentieth century provides abundant evidence which shows how easy it is to exploit individuals, especially the sick, the weak, and the vulnerable, when the only moral guide for science is a naive utilitarian dedication to the greatest good for the greatest number. Locally administered internal review boards were thought to be a solution to the need for ethical safeguards to protect the human guinea pig. However, with problems surrounding informed consent, the differentiation between experimentation and treatment, and the new advances within medicine, internal review boards were found to be inadequate for the job. This led to the establishment of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission by President Bill Clinton in the hopes of setting clear ethical standards for human research.
Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2013). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases: 2011 custom edition (9th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
In the natural sciences there are always ethical norms that limit how knowledge can be produced. In the natural sciences, experimentation is an important method of producing knowledge but ethical judgments can limit the use of this method. There are areas that are considered unethical ...
The article titled “Contemporary Ethical Analyses: A Shortfall in Scientific Knowledge” describes the ethics through the public’s eye. One of the major ethical issues brought up is informed consent.