Ethics in Research
After the outbreak of COVID-19, researchers were desperate to create a vaccine to stop the catastrophic pandemic. The COVID-19 vaccine was available to the public just after a year from its outbreak (U.S . Food & Drug Administration, 2021). It was created faster than the normal vaccine, which takes around 5 to 10 years to be used by the public (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023). Hence, some people questioned its safety, but the vaccine saved millions of people and ended the pandemic on May 5th, 2023 (which was declared by WHO) (Pfizer, 2023).
In the research process, animal testing is conducted in order to observe, analyze, and discover side-effects of products such as medicine, vaccines, cosmetics, and more so that they can be used for us humans. However, there has been criticism towards animal testing as animals may get hurt, questioning its ethics. Why do humans have a right to use animals for research? But without it, what is the risk of using new products for humans? Therefore, some people avoid using the products which were invented by conducting animal testing.
Ethics in research has always been a topic for discussion. Other than animal testing, there have been several incidents in the past that questions the ethics in the research field.
I have recently read books called ‘The Doctor’s Wife’ and ‘The Sea and Poison’, both written by Japanese authors. Both books are based on true stories and use humans in their research. In the doctor’s wife, the husband who is a doctor uses his wife and mother as an experiment model for anaesthesia. While in the sea and poisoned, the US military that was captured in the war were used by the Japanese doctor at the WW2 period to test the physical limit of the body by injecting sea water and other awful experiments. These horrific experiments happened outside Japan as well. In Guatemala and Alabama, doctors neglected to treat patients with syphilis to test what happens without any treatment (MicroHealth, 2018 ).
Moreover, from 1947 to the 70s, the psychiatric study was conducted in the Aston Hall hospital. This research used children who resided in the hospital as patients to test the effect of sodium amytal (BBC, 2018 ).
These people who participated in the research may or may not have got involved voluntarily. However, it is true that conducting research that has unknown effects has killed and damaged the mental and physical health of the patients. Patients were treated like animals by taking away their rights, getting abused and raped by the researchers.
There are laws to protect both animals and humans that participate in the research. Even with those laws, I believe the most important thing when conducting research is to respect and care about the participants, whether it being animals, plants, or humans, and plan a sustainable experiment that can ensure the safety and health of the participants in the long term.
Reference:
BBC. (2018, July 25). Aston Hall: Dr Kenneth Milner 'would have been quizzed' for rape. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-derbyshire-44943056#
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention . (2023, March 30). How Vaccines are Developed and Approved for Use. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/basics/test-approve.html
MicroHealth. (2018 , July 10 ). Top 10 Most Horrific Medical Experiments. MicroHealth. https://www.microhealthllc.com/blog/top-ten-most-horrific-medical-experiments/
Pfizer. (2023, May 11). Global and U.S. Agencies Declare End of COVID-19 Emergency. Pfizer. https://www.pfizer.com/news/announcements/global-and-us-agencies-declare-end-covid-19-emergency
U.S. Food & Drug Administration. (2021, August 23). FDA Approves First COVID-19 Vaccine. FDA News Release. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine.
By Azuki Tokunaga (She/Her) | Blog Committee Member
