Research Methods I

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Research Methods I

• Ethics in Research

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History of Ethics in Research

• Nazi war crimes sterilization
• Dried plant juice put in food in order to produce
  sterilization
• Intra-uterine injections of silver nitrate,
  formaline, Novocain to women
• Exposed men to radiation while waiting in line to
  fill out forms without their knowledge.

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• Josef Mengele and experimentation on human twins
  at Auschwitz
• Conducted genetic experiments on 1500 pair of
  twins between 1943 and 1944 only about 100
  survived. After information was taken, they were
  both killed simultaneously and dissected.
• Physical and psychological experiments
• performed experimental surgeries without
  anesthesia.
• transfused each others blood.
• impregnated female twins with brothers semen.
• placed them in isolation for extended periods to
  see what happened.
• injections with lethal viruses, bacteria, and
  chemicals.
• removed genitalia, organs, limbs, other body
  parts.
• blinded many by giving chemicals as eye drops to
  try to change eye color.

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Famine experiments

• Soviet prisoners were starved to death.
• Bodily functions were observed.
• They watched how the body deteriorates.

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Dachau Hypothermia Study

• German troops that were shot down would sometimes
  land in freezing water.
• They wondered how long people could survive in
  the cold.
• Took Jews and Russians and either put them in an
  ice bath, or strapped them to a stretcher and put
  them outside in the elements, and extensively
  measured bodily function.
• They found that most people died when their body
  temperature reached 77 F.
• Also did resuscitation experiments.

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• Others
• Tried to cure homosexuals with various
  chemicals, castration, etc. All were killed.
• Removed livers from living patients to study
• Took brains from those killed at concentration
  camps and analyzed
• Cut skin off of living people to study
• Sought vaccine for typhus fever. Injected
  prisoners at concentration camp with blood
  containing typhus fever.

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• Thoughts for discussion
• Should Nazi research be utilized? Is it ethical?
• Are we obligated to use the data?
• Problems
• Encourages future unethical research
• Participants in the experiments cant
  generalize
• Replicability
• Arguments for
• The Nazi scientists were quite capable
• They used the scientific method
• They had a clear rationale for doing the
  experiments
• Results were presented to the scientific
  community in Germany

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Tuskegee experiment

• Government offered free health care to many
  African-Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama in the
  1930s
• 600 people were given this opportunity, but it
  wasnt about health care.
• 400 of them had syphilis and were part of an
  experiment to see the effects of untreated
  syphilis. The other 200 were controls.
• The participants were never told that they had
  syphilis, just that they had bad blood.

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• If the participants needed medical attention of
  any kind, they had to go to the researchers.
• In 1947, penicillin was discovered
• Scientists still withheld treatment.
• Study lasted until 1972.
• By then, 28 men had died of syphilis, 100 others
  were dead of related complications, at least 40
  wives had been infected and 19 children had
  contracted the disease at birth.

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Towards an ethical science

• Nuremberg code specified rules of research.
• Belmont report
• The National Commission for the Protection of
  Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral
  Research
• Basic principles
• Respect for persons
• people should be treated as autonomous agents,
  and second, that persons with diminished autonomy
  are entitled to protection.

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• Special populations
• Beneficence protection from harm.
• Justice selection of participants must be fair.

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Current requirements for research with humans

• What is ethical is always changing.
• Society determines the ethic standards.
• Every institution has an organization that
  regulates research.
• All research must be approved by an institutional
  review board (IRB).
• IRBs consist of both scientists and people in
  the community.
• The IRB decides whether or not the research can
  be conducted.

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Ethics Summary

• 1. Informed consent
• Must tell them the exact purpose of study, what
  will be done, etc.
• 2. Participants must be able to withdraw from the
  study at any time without being penalized.
• Course requirements

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• 3. What is the risk / benefit to the participant?
• If any risk at all, informed consent requires
  telling them about it
• 4. Stress Minimize as much as possible,
  particularly after the experiment is over.
• 5. Confidentiality / anonymity
• 6. Debriefing after research is over, the
  participant must be told everything about the
  experiment.

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• 7. Deception touchy topic
• Sometimes deception is necessary, especially in
  social psychology we would act differently if we
  know what to expect
• E.g., Aschs conformity studies
• Cost-benefit analysis must show need for
  deception
• The greater the deception, the greater the
  expected benefits should be.
• Cannot deceive participants about research that
  is reasonably expected to cause physical pain or
  severe emotional distress.
• Must explore non-deceptive alternatives.

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IRB process as RSU

• CITI training
• IRB application
• 3 types
• Exempt
• Expedited
• Full

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• Famous studies Milgrams obedience studies

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• Humphreys tearoom trade study
• Male homosexual encounters in public restrooms
• Posed as a lookout
• watched the behavior
• Followed them to their cars and wrote down their
  license plates
• Got their names and addresses from police
• Pretended to be giving a health survey, he
  interviewed the participants in their home.

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• Middlemist, Knowles, and Matter (1976) study on
  invasion of personal space

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Other ethical issues

• Informed consent who can give consent who is
  incapable of doing so.
• Children
• Mentally disabled
• Parents have to give consent

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• Creating inequalities
• Problem you have a treatment that you think will
  be effective and want to test it. Is it right to
  deny that treatment to your control group?
• Getting around this
• 1. Participants who are in the control group
  continue to receive the best possible treatment.
• Does this muck up interpretation?
• Control group is supposed to be exactly the same
  as experimental group except for treatment.
• 2. Monitor results carefully. If early in the
  experiment the treatment seems effective, offer
  it to control group.
• 3. Design research differently

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• Between-subjects design vs. within-subjects
  design
• Between-subjects Two groups of subjects
  experimental vs. control group.
• Within-subjects One group of subjects gets both
  conditions of the experiment.
• Crossover design a type of within-subjects
  design Two parts
• Phase 1 half is experimental half is control
• Phase 2 opposite

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Ethics and the Funding of Research

• Most academic research is funded by the
  government.
• Some research is done by private companies
• What comes of this research?
• The researchers must stay independent from the
  source of funding.
• Researcher must act if there is pressure to
• Use a faulty design e.g., due to cost cuts
• find good data

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• Suppressing findings
• Often, researcher can negotiate a contract before
  beginning the study.
• My Novartis experience
• Review findings
• Bad research

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• Concealing the sponsor of research
• To subjects
• For reporting results

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Ethics in Animal Research

• All research with animals must have the approval
  of an IACUC (institutional animal care and use
  committee).
• The IACUC ensures that
• 1. Animals are housed properly
• 2. Animals are not mistreated. (records must be
  kept on weight, health changes, etc.)
• 3. Any person handling animals must be properly
  trained.

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• 4. Researcher must provide justification of
  research
• 5. Animals must be acquired from a qualified
  supplier or breeder
• 6. A veterinarian is in charge of care
• 7. Researchers may not cause animals pain unless
  that is what is explicitly being studied and
  there are potential benefits to humans of
  inflicting pain.

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• Labs are inspected by IACUC, USDA, OSCA.
• Animal Welfare Act defined how animals must be
  treated. Interesting aspects
• Rats, mice, and pigeons are most commonly used
  and are treated differently.
• About 25 million animals are used each year for
  research, 90 are rats.
• Researchers must provide exercise for dogs and an
  adequate physical environment to promote the
  psychological well-being of nonhuman primates.

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Animal Rights Activism

• Monitor activity of animal laboratories
• People for the ethical treatment of animals
  (PETA)
• Animal Liberation Front FBIs ten most
  dangerous organizations

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Professional Ethics

• Fabricating results are bad
• Kammerers salamanders
• Intentionally giving misleading results is bad.
• Giving misleading information about motor
  deficits.
• Not eliminating extraneous variables
• Using tricky data analysis
• E.g., ignoring assumptions, using inappropriate
  analyses, throwing out data.

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• Plagiarism is bad copying from someone else
• Reviewing someone elses data and not citing it.
• Citing a cited source without reading it
• Partial publication is bad publication of
  several articles based on one large set of data
• Dual publication is bad publishing the same data
  and results in more than one journal
  simultaneously.

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Last issue for discussion

• What to do with possibly damaging results?