Bioethics What is right?
What Are ethics? A decision about what is right or wrong. It may differ by country, generation, or religion.
Who decides what is ethical? Review boards are established to approve proposed research and oversee current experiments.
How are ethical decisions made? The Hippocratic Oath outlines behavioral expectations for doctors. This was not enough There are now many documents that help guide decisions about bioethics. Nuremburg Code - 1946 Declaration of Helsinki - 1964
Primary Guidelines Respect each individual Minimize harm/ Maximize benefit Fairness Authenticity
Insulin: a case of fairness.
His decision:
Steroids: A Issue of Authenticity What should Carl do?
Using Humans as Test Subjects The research must be valuable and have sufficient evidence to suggest that it could be beneficial Informed Consent Minimize risks Cannot deny treatments that are known to be helpful Must safeguard vulnerable populations The group that is used as test subjects must also benefit
Is this Ethical?
Animal Research Animals must not suffer unnecessarily The benefits must exceed the risk to the animals and generate useful information They should be well taken care of during the experiment and euthanized (only if necessary) or treated to remedy the condition upon completion of the experiment. Animal Experiments on Chimpanzees
Other Ethical considerations Publishing incomplete information about the procedure Misrepresenting data