WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 3 Ethics in Social Science 1. Some might say the start of ethical research started with the Nuremburg Code. This set of 10 rules were established after WWII ended and the Nazi doctors were put on trial for the harsh treatment of Jewish people, including tattooing them with numbers to identify their bodies once they became deceased. It was aiming to protect people from the cruelty experiments conducted. Research on animals was conducted first over humans, but it was believed even before the Nuremberg trials that research conduction on humans was thought about but never considered due to ethical reasons. The next important factor in terms of ethics would have to be the Declaration of Helsinki. It is a set of principles developed by the medical community to protect human rights when conducting research, but we can go even earlier than that.to the 1800’s. Charles Babbage published Reflections on the Decline of Science in England and Some of its Causes. He argued his colleagues were engaging in dishonest practices for conducting research. Louis Pasteur without testing on animals gave a not proven effective rabies vaccine to a little boy. Giuseppe Sanarelli injected five people with an experimental yellow fever bacteria without their consent causing three to die. These were all factors, and many more, that were considered when making the Nuremberg Laws and the Declaration of Helsinki. 2. The Belmont report was important because it established rules such as consent from the patient and helping the patient understand the full risks and what they were getting into. The report comes from what happened at the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in which a particular race, African Americans, were lied to and denied treatment for over 40 years. Because of this Syphilis spread rapidly and killed plenty of people from that community. This caused congress to conduct a meeting that lasted for over four years at the Belmont Conference Center. This is where the name Belmont Report comes into play. Three ethical principles were established there. The first one was respect for all persons. It stated all people should be treated as autonomous agents and are entitled to protection. The second was Beneficence. It stated researchers should have a greater benefit over harm being caused. The last was Justice. All people should be treated fairly, and no one should not be judged based on race, class, ethnicity, or anything else. These would later become the four basic principles of ethical research. This conference laid the foundation of ethical research and is still used to this very day. 3. According to the article in the UK there are extremist groups who believe testing on animals should be abolished completely. The group’s names are not listed specifically, but they believe testing on animals is cruel and unusual punishment. Laws in the UK have been established to make sure if testing on animals is necessary the least amount of harm comes to them and that they are made comfortable. One of these laws is the Animal Scientific Procedures Act of 1986. The basic explanation of the act explains what will be done to the animal and weighs the potential harms to the benefits of society and if the harm outweighs the benefits the research will not be allowed. They also follow the three Rs in the UK which are reduction, replacement, and refinement. These three bases covers the comfortability of the location the animal is, reduction in harm to the animals, and limits the number of animals that can be used or replaced. The UK is one of the strictest countries on animal research and continue to make new rules to ensure the comfortability of the much-needed animal research. 4. I decided to use the National Social Science Association. The NSSA strongly believes in freedom of speech, no matter how offensive someone may deem it, however, freedom of speech is separate from behavior. They believe you can say how you feel, but you need to do it in a respectful way that does not cause anyone harm or can be considered harassment. Their code of conduct closely relates to the first principle of ethics which is autonomy. They respect everyone’s opinions and ideas, as they are entitled to their own opinions, and just want to spread knowledge of ethical research. Failure to follow their code of conduct may result in expulsion from the conferences without being refunded membership fees and any cost of attending one of the conferences. So, this association is not actually conducting the research experiments, but is more of an open platform for researchers to share their findings as a community. From what I have found on their website they support the guidelines already set in place for ethical principles but want to build a platform to open ideas while protecting the researchers as well. I think this is important because from what I have researched so far there are a lot of rules and conducts to protect the patients, which is important, but there are not a lot of principles or conducts I could find that protect the researchers as well. This is important because research is needed for progress, however, some research can be seen as unethical to one person and ethical to another. So, the fact that this association holds conferences so that researchers can openly express their research to the public in a safe environment is important. 5. IRB or institutional review boards are used to conduct reviews to make sure social research is conducted properly. It is also a fancy title given by the government to review ethical research to make sure no rules are being violated. Reviews are conducted in the following steps. A study will be assigned to one or more member for review then at the meeting in which all the IRB members meet the assigned member introduces the board to the study that was researched. After the materials are presented to the whole board then a vote is casted. One of the main things an IRB considers is to make sure that the patient has indeed signed a consent forum for the research. They exist to protect the patient. Although the work is assigned to one member in particular to do the research each member at the meeting will have a copy of the research plan at the meeting for review on their own as well for the vote. References Commissioner, O. of the. (n.d.). IRB-faqs. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidancedocuments/institutional-review-boards-frequently-asked-questions. Designs, D. W. (n.d.). National Social Science Association. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://www.nssa.us/code.htm. Jarmusik, N. (n.d.). The nuremberg code and its impact on clinical research. Top Medical Device CRO Company. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.imarcresearch.com/blog/bid/359393/nuremberg-code-1947. Kirsh, D. (2019, February 8). How the Belmont Report clarified informed consent. MassDevice. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://www.massdevice.com/how-the-belmont-reportclarified-informed-consent/. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Research ethics timeline - David B. Resnik, J.D., Ph.d., bioethicist, NIEHS/NIH. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/timeline/index.cfm. University, S. C. (n.d.). Justice and fairness. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decisionmaking/justice-and-fairness/.
