| Volume 9 Number 1 |
|
Winter/Spring 1999 |
| Volume 9 Number 1 |
|
Winter/Spring 1999 |
INTRODUCTORY SESSION Chaired by Dr. Janet Storch, Dr. Henry Dinsdale, President of the NCEHR welcomed the participants to the Retreat and gave a brief introduction to the Retreat. He then introduced Dr. Paul Bernard who made the following presentation. OPENING PRESENTATION Dr. Paul Bernard Areas of interest: Research and teaching in the areas of work and social inequality, as well as in methodology and epistemology Dear Colleagues, A number of challenges and opportunities have arisen as a result of the recent adoption of the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethics. As a member of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, I would like to discuss the roles that members of the research community will be called upon to play with respect to this Statement, and how the Statement will be implemented. Also, as a working social scientist, I would like to help those of you who may be less familiar with our disciplines to better understand our practices. I wish to address three major issues in my talk:
The nature of the ethical endeavor in science Science, as we all know, is a complex activity—not only because of its internal dynamics, where we face constantly receding but always present complexity and uncertainty, but also because it is practised in the context of a larger society, with political and economic forces at play. Curiosity itself may lead scientists into practices that raise ethical issues, but these stakes are even higher when the political and economic processes that shape scientific activity threaten to lead it in directions that might compromise ethical standards, as well as the very practice of science. For this reason, ethical guidelines have to be stated and implemented. It would seem that one simple way to do this would be to adopt legislation. After all, we live in a society where rights and duties are firmly entrenched in law. This solution has been adopted by a number of other societies, but it has proven cumbersome— not only with respect to enforcement mechanisms, but also with respect to mechanisms that have to be used to adapt legislation to an ever-evolving scientific activity. More generally, the relationship between science and the State, or for that matter between science and the economy, has always proven to be very delicate. All three of these systems have a logic of their own and their incompatibility may prove highly destructive, as the experience of other societies tends to show. For this reason, the three federal granting councils of Canada have followed another path. They have chosen to adopt a common policy statement that would allow the self-regulation of the scientific community with respect to ethical conduct, so that State intervention in the form of legislation would not be necessary. This should provide us with the flexibility required to constantly adapt our research to ethical standards, and to adapt our ethical standards to the changing practices of our scientific activity. Yet, this raises a troubling issue: if we are to adopt a policy statement to avoid cumbersome legislation, then we could be tempted to consider this Statement as if it were a piece of internal legislation within the scientific community. Should we take such a stance? Should we lay the emphasis, in dealing with the statement, on the mechanisms for the enforcement of a very specific set of rules, much in the way that the courts would do it? I think not, because we would then have simply reproduced internally what could have been imposed from outside. On the contrary, we should promote an awareness of ethical standards in the scientific community; we should insist on inviting "the citizens of the republic of science" to rise to the occasion, and indeed to become active creators of ethical standards appropriate to the evolving situation of scientific practices. In addition, we should encourage an active dialogue around these ethical standards, so that issues and their provisional resolutions are brought to the general attention, and become part of the ongoing activity of the scientific community. For this to take place, it is crucial that the policy statement and its implementation mechanism be at once highly principled and very practical. Indeed, experience shows that impractical procedures tend to not be implemented. But there is more to this than sheer impracticality. If we cannot devise practical implementation procedures, then the ongoing creation and discussion processes I am calling for will not take place. We have to find ways of discussing the ethical issues surrounding research practices in ways that do not restrict legitimate research practices; we might even consider how ethical reflection and dialogue can enhance research, a point I will turn to in the last section of this presentation. Basically, we’re faced with a delicate balancing act between sensitizing activities and controlling activities. Education and dialogue are, of course, the solution of choice. If we could convince all researchers that it is important to apply ethical norms, and if we could inform them of the current wisdom about those ethical norms, control would become unnecessary. But of course, this is unlikely to happen, and enforcement remains necessary when sensitization fails. Indeed the relationship between dialogue and control is quite complex. As I just mentioned, the former lessens the need for the latter. But on the other hand, control is, in essence, part of a sensitization strategy; when abuse happens, justice has to be done, and it must be seen to be done. Moreover, and even more importantly, control can interfere with dialogue, in the sense that the fear of sanctions can hinder the circulation of information, which obviously is integral to the dialogue on ethical issues. I have no general solution to propose for this balancing act between sensitization and control, and indeed I suspect that there exists no general solution; answers have to be found as issues arise, and as communities and institutions evolve. I can, however, try to shed some more light on how such a balance can be achieved by outlining the different types of people and views that Research Ethics Boards are likely to be confronted with. I have developed a twelve-fold typology, which may not be exhaustive, but at least allows us to identify problems that may arise during the ethical review process. Some of these problems are of a specifically ethical nature; some have to do with the competence of the players involved; and some concern the politics of the players involved. The first three types pertain to ethics as such. The first type is the most classic case of the cheaters, that is, researchers who knowingly violate ethical norms. There may not be very many such cheaters, as most people tend to conceal, even from themselves, self-interested motivations in their various activities. In this case, control is mandated and sensitization efforts would probably be lost, at least on the offenders themselves. The second type is the reluctant or minimalist researcher, who will abide by the rules in a legalistic sense, but will be far less than proactive in reflecting on subtle or emerging ethical issues. This researcher might also insist that others— and in particular the Research Ethics Board—do the same. The Policy Statement is seen as a code by the minimalists, and what is covered by that code should, in their view, be carefully demarcated. The third type I call the vengeful. These are researchers involved in a conflict of interest during an ethical review. For example, they may accuse a colleague of not abiding by some of the principles in the Policy Statement, but only because they wish to curb or undermine that colleague’s research, and take revenge for some offence. I also call them Trojan Horses, because their co-operation with a Research Ethics Board may at first sight appear to be motivated by purely ethical considerations. The next four types involve competence problems, either with respect to ethics or with respect to research itself. The fourth type, the unaware, covers researchers who do not take into account the Policy Statement in their research, or those who neglect some aspect of it. Sensitization efforts have failed to help these researchers, mainly because of their own negligence, or because educational efforts have been insufficient. The fifth type, the unsophisticated, is an attenuated version of the fourth type. These researchers have had some basic exposure to ethical principles, but they have not adequately reflected on the various ethical issues arising out of their own work, or in the work that they have to review. Increased sensitization efforts are necessary for both the fourth and fifth types. Our sixth type is the ignoramus. These are members of Research Ethics Boards, or even sometimes researchers themselves, who do not know enough about research itself and its complexities: they are unable to either identify ethical issues in a field, or to assess the risks involved, or to situate issues and risks in the context of scholarly standards. The seventh type I call the uninformed, an attenuated, indeed more narrowly specific, version of the previous type. These are researchers or members of Research Ethics Boards who do not know enough about a specific research protocol or field to be able to identify the ethical issues involved, and to put them in the appropriate context. Again, an increase in sensitization efforts is the preferred course of corrective action for these two types, if people have the ability and the willingness to learn. There are fives types of political positions impinging on ethical review issues. Type eight I call the obstructionist. These people either deny that ethics is an issue at all, at least in the social sciences and humanities, or they think that it should not be assessed in advance of the research process but only at the end, when research products are being evaluated. Of course the problem here is that harm may have already been done. The ninth type is the zealot. They are people who interpret the Policy Statement literally and apply its strictest provisions in an inappropriate context. There are also privacy activists, who think research is a privilege, and who consequently fail to see it as a legitimate activity whose requirements have to be balanced against the needs for privacy. The eleventh type I call uneasy allies. They are researchers and members of Research Ethics Boards who consider the Policy Statement insufficiently sophisticated, and who will hold themselves, as well as others, to higher standards. Such people are concerned about promoting a greater awareness of ethics; they actively push us further in our reflections on research practices, which is good. Yet, they are uneasy allies because their thrust towards higher standards may make implementation efforts by Research Ethics Boards somewhat difficult and impractical—indeed, it may, under certain circumstances, jeopardize the whole enterprise by pointing to ever-present shortcomings. As we say in French, "Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien". The last type I call political activists. These are people who pursue political causes, broadly speaking, and who approach research and ethical issues only in light of their impact on the designated cause. This may, of course, have beneficial effects for certain disadvantaged or marginalized groups, but it may also have adverse effects by displacing ethics as the centre of the ethical review process. As I’ve mentioned above, these types may not be exhaustive and they certainly are not mutually exclusive. Yet to be aware of them may help the Research Ethics Boards, in our universities and institutions, to maintain the balance between necessary control and ongoing dialogue. Now that we have reviewed the challenges and problems of implementing the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethics, let us examine some of its unforeseen prospects. Applying the Policy Statement will obviously require fairly substantial, though largely invisible, resources. Above all, the review process will require a considerable commitment of time and energy from faculty members and researchers; this will mean less time for actual research. Consequently, if ethical reflections are to become part of the continual practice of researchers, we will have to consider not only ways of making ethical review practical, but also of making ethical thinking and review contribute to the enrichment of research as such. I can think of two avenues that open up in this respect. In the first place, we should note that this is a Tri-Council Policy Statement. What this means is that there will have to be a greater joint involvement not only of the Councils themselves, but of practising researchers in universities from the fields of natural sciences and engineering, medical sciences, and social sciences and humanities; they should all co-operate in putting into practice what is mandated by the Policy Statement. In other words, the Statement and its implementation can move us further towards interdisciplinary dialogue and co-operation—which is increasingly considered by researchers and by users of research results as a superior method of doing science. Specialization obviously entails large payoffs in the process of discovery, but ideas also have a disconcerting habit of coming to people from angles that they had not anticipated. Profound discoveries are often made in the process of trying to explain to a gifted neophyte or to a colleague who is not a specialist in our own discipline (or sub-discipline) what it is that we are doing and why we are doing it. Such dialogue can increase our awareness of why we do things a certain way, and they may also provide us with alternative ways in which we might go about looking for truth; in a word, they help us develop lateral thinking. Thus, the practical effect of the Tri-Council Statement will be to bring together researchers belonging to different disciplines and different areas of knowledge. This is an opportunity to form links beyond the frontiers of disciplines, learn more about the practices of other scientists, and improve our own research practices. In the second place, and probably even more importantly, the adoption of the Policy Statement will help us refine and redefine our conception of the research participant. Instead of considering this participant as a mere subject, we will have to increase our awareness of the effect of our research on this person, and on the person’s social environment. We will have to encourage participants and the groups to which they belong to tell us more about the effects of research on them, and to tell us more about the social environments in which our encounters with them occur. This will provide us with a more holistic view of the research participants, and it will give us a better understanding of all the dimensions of their lives. These dimensions interact in complex ways and heavily influence the research results in which we are ultimately interested. To put it in different words, we will be moving towards a better balance between the externalist, often quantitative, approach to research, and a more experiential, qualitative one, concerned with the whole of the individual, in the sense that John Ralston Saul gives to the latter notion. The social sciences and humanities are gradually moving away from a "magic bullet" approach to policies and programs; they may help engineering, as well as the natural and medical sciences to move towards a broader vision of their technological and therapeutic accomplishments. Conclusion Over time, the efforts of the Research Ethics Boards should be constantly fed back into an ongoing revision of the Policy Statement. If left to itself, this document will tend to petrify, if only because it is a compromise between major institutions, and it is not easily changed once adopted. Yet, change is of the essence in ethical reflection. This is true not only because our research practices evolve and require new solutions, but also because ethical reflection itself, even on old problems, continues to generate new questions and new answers. These should be recycled into an improved Policy Statement. Whether we will achieve this goal or not is contingent to a large extent on whether Research Ethics Boards take a pro-active stand on research ethics, and whether they can successfully involve a large part of the community in open dialogue on the ethical aspects of research.
Chair: Dr. John Foerster,
The best code of ethics, when considered only as an accessory, may not prevent the most de-humanizing acts. A shocking example of this pernicious effect of a compartmentalized research process can be found in the Nazi experiments conducted by brilliant and sometimes renowned researchers who received their authority from a country (Germany) which was known at the time to have the best code of ethics in the world. These atrocities, which have gradually become public knowledge, might have been avoided if the code of ethics had been taught in German universities and integrated into the lives of physicians, academics and researchers. Teaching the principles embodied in the Tri-Council Policy Statement and promoting the integration of ethics into research now represents the most important mandate of NCEHR. This tremendous endeavour will, however, entail more training of Council members, since it was felt that the Council as a whole had an incomplete knowledge base of the concerns and challenges faced by colleagues in the humanities and social sciences. This first session on the ethical challenges met by human research in psychology (Dr. Daphne Maurer, McMaster University), anthropology (Dr. Dorothy Counts, University of Waterloo) and history (Dr. Chris Armstrong, York University) can serve as a familiarization exercise. Dr. Daphne Maurer
1) Subject pools It is common practice for researchers in psychology to recruit their experimental subjects from within the psychology student body. Any student who registers for a psychology class will likely be required to take on the role of a research subject as a way of earning credits or bonus marks. The rationale is that taking part in scientific research will provide the student with a better understanding of the research process and of the experimental results they learn about in the textbook and lectures. Mandatory participation in research generates hundreds of hours of research participation and more representative samples than those that are obtained when research is restricted to volunteers. It also makes it possible for researchers – who are often PhD. candidates or undergraduate honour students – to get their work done within a short time. The economic factor appears obvious: researchers get maximum fringe benefits in exchange for minimum monetary investment. This leaves granting councils with more money to distribute to psychology researchers who do not deal with human subjects and who must buy the animals required for their experiments. The benefit to the student is education about the topic of the study and about the research process. The University of Toronto’s requirements for Introductory Psychology are a good model of a structure designed to assure that students receive such a benefit. For example, researchers wishing to use the subject pool must sign a contract that they will abide by the rules outlined in a 13-page manual; their proposed study and consent form must be approved by the Research Ethics Board; they must prepare (and get approved) a study package for the subjects that includes information about the problem being studied, the experimental procedure, the hypotheses, the independent and dependent variables, implications for theory or practice, a reference to relevant pages in the textbook for the course, and a current reference in the literature; and they must have approved 6 test questions a subject should be able to answer after reading the study package. Students receive credit for participation only if they answer correctly whichever one of those questions they are given. From the participants’ perspective, there are three concerns about required research participation: the availability of an attractive experiment to sign up for; meeting the inclusion criteria for participation in an individual experiment (e.g., right-handed females aged 18-22); and the coercive nature of the requirement. Psychology researchers tend to downplay the coercion factor, because the assignment is educational (like being required to read a textbook) and the student can choose among many experiments, all of minimal risk. Dr. Maurer notes that the freedom to choose among experiments is sometimes purely rhetorical, since the choice is typically based on skimpy information provided on announcement boards. Nevertheless, other than a few isolated complaints, there is no indication that students actually feel coerced into participation in these experiments. On the contrary, surveys show that students generally feel that they have acquired a better understanding of scientific research and are satisfied with the educational value of their participation. So, subject pools seem to be able to serve two interdependent clienteles well: researchers and students. In order to ensure that the benefits work both ways, Dr. Maurer offers five suggestions:
2) Deception The use of deception in psychological research grew out of efforts in the 1950s to establish a scientific basis for social psychology. The use of deception not only made possible the observation and measurement of behaviour in a controlled environment, it also effectively neutralized any attempt by the subjects to make what they conjectured was the "correct" response to the perceived stimuli. In order to obtain as natural a response as possible, the subjects were methodically misled as to the actual purpose of the experiment. Repeated empirical demonstrations that subjects’ change their behaviour to fit the experimenter’s hypothesis has led researchers in all branches of psychology to keep participants in the dark about the full purpose of a study – until after the data are collected. The act of misleading is referred to as deception and has, according to Dr. Maurer, a two-fold meaning: omission and commission. Omission occurs when the researcher deliberately conceals information that is pertinent to the experiment from the subject. For example, the experimenter may conceal the hypothesis being tested, in order to avoid influencing the participant’s responses. This form of deception is considered rather benign. However, there are cases where the omission can be more serious. For example, a serious omission occurs when subjects are told that they are being given alcohol but are kept ignorant about the side effects and, moreover, about the true purpose of the experiment, which is to examine their reactions to these side effects. Commission occurs when the subject is deliberately deceived in order for the pre-selected variable to be properly isolated. For that purpose, the researcher may lie about the purpose of the experiment or may provide false feedback. Commission can be benign,e.g., asking the subject to classify objects, and then giving a surprise memory test in order to test the relationship between classification and later recall. But it often raises troubling ethical issues. Take for example the social psychology landmark commonly referred to as the "Milgram experiment". This particularly deceptive experimental procedure was developed in the early 60’s as a means to study obedience to authority. The subjects, recruited by ads in the papers, were told that the experiment was designed to measure the impact of punishment on learning. Unknown to these subjects, the assignment of roles was predetermined, so that they always held the "teacher" position, while a confederate 47-year-old accountant always held the "student" position. The "teacher" was instructed to teach the student by applying gradually increasing "electric shocks" for each wrong answer provided. The subjects were told that the "shocks", although extremely painful, would cause no permanent tissue damage. The confederate had been coached to make errors and to react to the shocks according to a fixed script. The subjects were thus deceived about the following facts:
Without a doubt, this type of methodology raises important ethical issues related to respect for persons and to their right to make voluntary choices when participating in experiments. When a choice is based on false pretences, it cannot be said to be voluntary. Another ethical issue is the breach of trust between the researcher and the subject. Many experiments in psychology today include some form of deception, but there is no consensus among psychologists about when it is justifiable and when it is unethical. However, most agree that it is justifiable only if:
The ethical issues surrounding experiments like Milgram’s are many-faceted, and do not lead to easy conclusions or generalizations. The principal argument put forth by those researchers who are comfortable with severe forms of deception like this is academic freedom. They argue that deception is a necessary component of psychology research and that as long as the risk of harm is kept to a minimum, there is no infringement of the person’s rights. Any interference with their research, however, would constitute a violation of their academic freedom, since they are being prevented from producing new knowledge. As for psychologists who do not use deception in their own research, attitudes vary from respect for the professionalism of other areas to pure and simple condemnation. Dr. Maurer notes there is a concern for the effect of deception on the quality of the rapport between the scientific community and society as a whole. But what if simulation or role-playing were used instead of deception? Researchers who use deception argue that there will always be a difference between simulation and real life, and it is the latter that we aim to understand. Dr. Maurer notes that one viewpoint that would be worth listening to, but which is usually absent from the discussion, is that of the confederate. How does the confederate (often a student) feel about playing a scripted deceptive role? One of the articles distributed to our retreat participants described the unease of one confederate. Another viewpoint absent from most debates is that of the participants who were deceived. The little information available is surprising. For example, in a follow-up study of Milgram’s experiment, the great majority of subjects said that they were glad to have participated in the experiment. (However, their answers might have been influenced by the five-page summary handed out to them prior to the questionnaire, which emphasized the important knowledge that was gained from the experimental results.) A similar picture emerges from participants in a later version of Milgram’s experiment, in which subjects were given either alcohol or a placebo. The independent variable was the effect of alcohol on the willingness to give shock. The subjects were misled by being told that:
In a follow-up questionnaire returned by 57 participants:
Reactions of people on the street (of Chicago) to deception are similarly benign. When presented with different accounts of Milgram’s experiment, answers to questions about whether a researcher should be allowed to conduct such an experiment, whether such experiments should be federally funded, and to what extent these experiments were valuable, etc. were related to the findings that were described (i.e., whether subjects gave high level of shocks or refused to do so) and not by whether or not the subjects had been deceived about the shocks. The participants’ perspective about deception is probably influenced by the quality of the debriefing. A good debriefing has the following characteristics:
There is little research on the effectiveness of debriefing. One study compared the effect of debriefing on subjects asked to give the "learner" feedback in the form of noise (instead of shock) of any loudness (low stress group) or of increasing loudness, to the point that the confederate complained it was very painful (high stress group). After the subsequent debriefing, the high stress group resembled the low stress group in pulse rate, reported enjoyment of the experiment, and willingness to participate in similar experiments in the future. They exceeded the low stress group in reported arousal, and in thinking they had learned something important about themselves and psychology. In conclusion, what is to be said about deception? First of all, Dr. Maurer asserts that her own research for this talk made it clear that it is a very complex subject. Deception has many dimensions and it can be used procedurally in many different ways. It cannot be condemned outright; neither can it be condoned. What clearly is needed is better education of psychologists and REBS about the forms that deception takes, their role in different types of research, and the ethical issues involved in each case. In Dr. Maurer’s view, neither the guidelines written by American Psychological Association (APA, distributed in resource kit) nor by the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) provide adequate education about deception and proper debriefing. It will take a lot of work to create clear guidelines on the use of deception. Moreover, these ethical issues must be addressed during the training process of experimental psychologists. Discussion
Before and during the Second World War, research on deception was conducted by the military, but it did not have a large influence on university research. But, Dr. Maurer does not think that research using deception has been driven by military or government needs.
Dr. Maurer reiterates that the participants’ perspective does not always correspond to predictions — they often have said that they do not mind having been deceived because it was necessary to answer an important question. However, it would be a mistake to generalize from participants’ statements about particular studies they were part of. It is likely that a participant’s perspective will depend on the quality of the debriefing and the specific type of deception.
N.B.: Dr. Derevensky notes that when the Milgram study is taught at the University, the ethical issues are seldom discussed. People interested in the Milgram study usually focus on its results. If ethics is not practised and taught, and if the Milgram study were reduced to the factual data it yielded, the ethical issues would not be absorbed by students. Dr. Maurer agrees that there is a need for better ethical education of experimental psychologists. For example, almost everything she knows about ethics she learned through osmosis from her supervisor. Professor Dorothy Counts Dr. Counts introduces her lecture by acknowledging the co-operation of fellow anthropologists, whom she asked for suggestions on specific ethical concerns she should address at this retreat. Her presentation attempts to summarize their feedback, but she also draws attention to some of her own concerns. It would be surprising not to find an ethical component in any undergraduate or graduate anthropology program. Ethics is intimately linked to anthropology research. Because of the way anthropologists do research, they are perhaps more concerned with teaching ethics to their students than other disciplines are. Dishonesty can always be unearthed, and when it is, not only is the researcher’s credibility on the line, so is the anthropology profession. It is important to be aware of the fact that the ethical challenges anthropologists have to face depend on characteristics typical of anthropological research – two of which will be discussed here:
Participant-observation is a procedure whereby the anthropologists actually live with the people they are studying and participate fully in their daily life. Some anthropologists are even brought into the kinship system of the community in which they work. By being given a particular social standing in the community, they take on certain obligations toward their kinship group and they are also entitled to the rights of this group. In short, there is a reciprocal understanding between the researcher and the community with respect to rights and responsibilities. The researcher is, therefore, expected to give something back to the community in exchange for its participation in the study. An example of this is Dr. Stan Barry’s research (University of Guelph) conducted on a neo-Nazi group in southern Ontario. The group accepted his presence among them and allowed him to collect information, but their condition was that his research constitute an attempt at providing reasonable explanations for their socially unacceptable behaviour. In their view, knowledge is the first step toward dialogue. They believe that they are being ostracized simply because of society’s ignorance. As for the long-term quality of anthropology research, Dr. Counts asserts that it is recent and common. When she started her fieldwork in 1966, few people had done long-term research. Among the colleagues she has known for a decade or so, most have made two or more extended field trips back to the communities they have studied. An anthropologist’s research implies a long-term relationship with a community of people. Like any healthy human relationship, it calls for respect and empathy. Anthropologists have opened up numerous areas of research all over the world and the research setting is very naturalistic. In an earlier draft of the Policy Statement, we defined this naturalistic setting as: "[g]enerally not perceived as established for the sole and primary purpose of conducting research". The immediate consequence of this setting is an environment in which all participants share control, in contrast to its being controlled solely by the researcher. This in turn sets the scene for unexpected and unpredictable variables and events. Dr. Counts recalls travelling to different communities with the intent of building a repertoire of legends and folk tales. Because of an unforeseen situation that put the research team at risk, they instead conducted completely different research at the request of a community that was involved in domestic violence. This raised several questions: What were the researchers to do? Were they to miss out on this wonderful opportunity and go back home because their original ethics protocol was no longer relevant? Needless to say, a naturalistic setting and long-term research require a good deal of flexibility on the part of anthropologists who want to conduct research successfully. What are the ethical principles anthropologists agree on? Two fundamental principles are:
While the principles in themselves appear very simple and straightforward, the problems start when interpretation comes into play. What does it mean "not to do harm"? Usually, an anthropologist will grant "no-harm" priority to individuals over groups. But as Cynthia Keppley Mahmoud’s article1 shows, the desire to fully understand a community sometimes implies witnessing acts of violence which should not be condoned. Still worse, even though anthropologists do not mean for harm to occur as a result of their research, it may take place unpredictably. A good example of this is the event that led to the first ethical statement by the American Anthropological Association. In the early 70’s, a group of anthropologists set out to do some research in Thailand. Permission was granted by government authorities to conduct such research, but only on the condition that a certain kind of apparently innocuous data be collected and deposited in their hands afterwards. Little did the anthropologists know that the data they had gathered would end up being used by the military –Thai and American – to bomb villages, poison water supplies, and execute leaders. Are there any ethical guidelines in existence that might prove to be helpful in this kind of situation? One of them is to take appropriate measures in order for the data not to end up in the wrong hands for the wrong reasons, even if this eventually means cancelling a particular research project. What about the claim that research ought to have a positive impact? This is difficult to measure. It does not necessarily follow immediately after the research that good has been done, as it does not necessarily result in commensurable wealth. The repatriation of culture is one of these intangible goods. But then again, the situation can be very complex. It may be the case that a particular community, for reasons of honour and dignity, does not wish for the various data collected by anthropologists to be rendered public in their midst. The preservation of anonymity entails another kind of ethical problem and also has its adverse effects. Anonymity, in itself, does not constitute an absolute means of securing sensitive data. There are unimaginable ways to find out what one really wants to find out. When it comes to the principle of harm/good, anthropologists must make themselves aware of the many possibilities – however unlikely – of a terrible discrepancy between their initial intent and reality. Thus folklorist Bruce Jackson rightly warns: "think what use might be made of this material later, think how you would feel if your words were used that way, and then decide accordingly. If your material includes things that might harm people, then you should not be depositing it in an archive over which you have no control". The anthropologist’s ethical responsibilities stretch over time. The principle of no-clandestine research states that everyone must know who the anthropologist is, why the research is being conducted and how it is going to be done. Here is an excerpt taken from the pledge made by the Society for Applied Anthropology:
Lack of disclosure never pays off and any serious breach of trust will most likely result in the impossibility of conducting the research any further, and in the researcher’s eviction from the community. A serious breach of trust may even put the researcher’s life at risk. But even without having to go this far, serious problems may arise out of the study of a community. Working on the Tri-Council Policy has made Dr. Counts aware that legitimacy is problematic. There is a need to clearly determine who has the right to speak in the name of a community and who has the proper authority to give permission for an anthropologist to study a particular community. She cites the case of an anthropologist who agreed to help a community deal with political disputes involving the provincial authorities, specifically at the request of this community, and who travelled to Papua New Guinea with a tourist visa because her research application was denied by the provincial officials. Upon learning of her activities with the community, the authorities expelled her from the country, prohibited her from returning, and placed a moratorium on anthropological research for an indefinite period of time. This incident had a negative impact not only on her career, but also on other anthropologists who worked in Oceania. Finally, the authorities censured her. Of course it was a clear case of clandestine research. The government authorities had a right to know of her research activities. But it does not mean that they can rightly presume to speak for the local community with which the anthropologist wanted to work. Researchers are expected to respect the political rules of the host country, but what if the political is unethical? What is to be deduced from all of these considerations? First, real life provides ample room for the two fundamental anthropological research principles: do not harm; do not conduct clandestine research. Second, anthropological research is definitely characterized by its nativistic setting and the resulting relationship between the researcher and the communities that are studied. Here are Dr. Count’s concluding recommendations:
Prof. Chris Armstrong, Why do historical researchers routinely ignore ethical guidelines for the use of human subjects? Professor Armstrong begins by citing some questions sampled from York University’s research policies. Some questions are focused on the profile of participants, i.e. age, gender, social status; others are oriented more toward methods, e.g., what the participants will be asked to do, location of study, stimuli, material. Researchers are expected to provide precise answers. Human subjects represent a broad spectrum in terms of age, social status, etc. Prof. Armstrong once received a grant from SSHRC to investigate the history of the evolution of the securities market in Canada from the late nineteenth century to 1980. When he began his research, he found that a number of individuals who had been important in the securities market in Canada mainly in the period since the second world war – as stockbrokers, lawyers, civil servants, regulators, etc. – were still alive. He then contacted and interviewed some of these people. An 84-year-old man who had been a regulator and stockbroker was interviewed, and he provided a number of historical photos. In return for having agreed to be interviewed, the man was shown the chapters where he was mentioned in the book. Prof. Armstrong mentions one of his doctoral candidates who is working on the impact of hydroelectric projects on the native Cree population in Northwestern Ontario. According to Prof. Armstrong, the doctoral candidate ran into trouble in his quest for support for his research when he responded to a questionnaire from the Faculty of Graduate Studies. He neglected the section on human participants, so the Faculty of Graduate Studies returned the questionnaire with instructions to fill out the area he had missed. Prof. Armstrong then had to sign a declaration stating the following: "I and the other two members of the supervisory committee, in our opinion, believe that the research for the above-named dissertation as outlined in the proposal represents minimal risk to the research participants". Prof. Armstrong mentions another doctoral candidate who had been conducting research on the late nineteenth century and who then decided to write a historical study of the chain donut store. When he changed his dissertation topic, he began to interview people at donut shops; however, he did not do anything about filing the human participants review questionnaire, even though he had been reminded several times. Why do some historians routinely ignore ethical guidelines governing the use of human subjects? When historians deal with written, oral or pictorial evidence about historical figures, they view them differently from the way that the social-human scientists and the medical scientists view their experimental subjects. Historians do not use the term "subjects"; they refer to people whom they write about as "objects". The a priori understanding is that they are not "vulnerable". Interviewees always have the right to specify the information they are willing to share and that which they do not wish to be publicized. Under cross-examination by a well-informed historian, they can handle themselves. Of course, part of the game is to get the participants to admit things that they might not otherwise want to. But this can be done at minimal risk for participants. Historians also hold a different point of view on privacy. The right to free access to information seems to infringe on the right to privacy. Under the Privacy Act researchers are not allowed to reveal certain private information without signing an agreement saying that they will use it only with personal identifiers removed. The problem is that privacy regulation mandates the obliteration of personal identifiers for certain kinds of information and even mandates the destruction of records. The result is that a very low percentage of information is left to consult. According to the Canadian National Archivist, Canada retains approximately 5% of records generated by the federal government. In Sweden, the percentage is much higher. Historians generally assume that the only way to get at the truth of events is through archives, documents, letters and interviews. From this point of view, privacy is perceived as an obstacle to truth. For example, Statistics Canada takes the view that the manuscript census returns – which represent a particularly valuable source of information about Canadians – should be closed for a period of 100 years and only opened after one’s death or, alternatively, they should be closed forever. This creates a real problem for historians of western Canada interested in the socio-economic analysis of the European immigrants who first arrived in western Canada only in 1911. What this means is that research into this population can begin only in 2011. But there are pressing considerations for unearthing this information sooner. The copyright law is another obstacle for historians. It gives rise to privacy concerns, as well as the ethical use of information. Suppose a researcher is the recipient of a response-letter from an interviewee. It is not easy to determine precisely how much or how many of this person’s ideas the researcher is allowed to reproduce. While the academic community has neglected the relevance of these concerns, historians are rather rebellious about them and most feel that guidelines are not relevant to them. But it is not clear that we should leave oral history and the use of historical documents solely to the practitioner’s judgement. To summarize: historians generally display a sceptical attitude about the notion that the kind of revelations that are made can be regarded as a serious invasion of personal privacy or that they pose a real risk to the well-being of the subjects involved. Thus, Prof. Armstrong makes the following suggestions:
Chair: Fernand Roberge, Education Professor Jeffrey Derevensky
The premise underlying educational research is that research ought to be done for the pursuit of knowledge. This pursuit of knowledge can be done in terms of either basic knowledge or applied knowledge. In the educational sphere, this alternative is, however, controversial. Most school boards do not favour basic research. If they perceive that there are no applications directly ensuing from this basic research, they will not allow it on their administrative territory. The other problem is the balanced relationship between the money invested for research by school boards and the benefits of the research. Schools always ask how long this will take. Another premise is that informed consent is based upon an understanding of the issues involved and the potential risk. When children are asked to give their consent, we must ensure that they understand the implications, even if the parents are asked to sign the consent form. The rights of the individual to privacy, confidentiality and anonymity are assumed. Researchers also have an obligation to the population served. There are also particular constraints related to educational research. The first is the obligation to ask for parental consent when the research requires participants still in their childhood or adolescence. The researcher must ensure that the parents who agree to allow their child to participate in the research form a representative sample of all parents. Another concern is the general scope of the findings. In the United States, educational research is exempt from ethical review if it is conducted in established or commonly accepted educational settings involving normal educational practices such as:
In these settings, there is no need for REBs or for parental consent. This raises the objectivity of such research. Do teacher researchers have the necessary objectivity to look at the results in an effective way? Do they not have vested interests? Many educational research studies have shown that when curricula innovation is done using volunteer teachers, the five or ten teachers selected from a school to evaluate the effectiveness of the curricula normally find positive results. When the study is duplicated across the board, the results are far less promising. Once the program is applied on a larger scale, other teachers are neither as keen nor have the same support systems, nor do they have the same instructional intervention. The ethical issue is that this setting opens the door to all kinds of over-generalizations based on a selective, unrepresentative sample of volunteers who participate in the study. There are much less restrictive guidelines found in educational research than in other disciplines. While everyone agrees that there should be a letter of consent for children under 18, few pay attention to the intelligibility (what language should be used?) of this letter or its accuracy. It is unethical to authorize and conduct methodologically unsound research. Dr. Derevensky, therefore, suggests that in addition to ethical issues, scientific issues should be addressed. In order to do so, he recommends that parallel committees be set up in conjunction with REBs to evaluate the scientific merit of research projects. There also remains the vast problem of anonymity, which, on the practical level, means adequately storing the audio/video information gathered during research and determining its ownership and usage. Is the data re-useable by further educational research? If so, must parental consent be obtained again? Usually government agencies provide the necessary research funds, but many researchers get their funding from outside agencies and gambling institutions (e.g., Loto Quebec, which is youth-oriented). In that case, who owns the data and who should be able to use it? Can the data be reported to the media? What control do researchers have over what is reported? What about sensitive issues and vulnerable groups? Educational researchers, REBs and school boards are particularly sensitive to childrens’ safety. Some studies require strenuous physical activities on the part of children. How do we ensure that no harm is going to be done to them? If their participation results in absence from the classroom, what is to be done with the children who are not allowed by their parents to participate? If a regular classroom day were in store for them, would it not appear as though they were being punished? All of these research ethics problems are endemic to the educational setting, and there are no clear and definitive answers. According to Dr. Derevensky, educational research also falls into a grey area from the point of view of science. He, therefore, strongly recommends that REBs be reinforced with a science component. As for school boards, they need to become more acquainted with research ethics guidelines and should be given assistance in generating guidelines for research. Finally, it is important to stress the need for researchers to engage in both basic and applied research in schools, because the former generates material for the latter. Discussion
Business and Management Professors Terri Lituchy and James Jans, Although Dr. Lituchy graduated from the University of Arizona Business School, her academic activities are very closely related to social research. The purpose of her presentation is to describe the ethical issues that ensue from various kinds of business and management research. Commerce research is normally concerned with stock markets, the effects of economic changes on the value of RRSPs, and various investment oppor- tunities. It is concerned also with risk-taking in relationship to decision-making and its impact on manager’s remuneration. As for marketing research it is focussed on sales, advertising, and consumer behaviour. Management research deals with organizational behaviour and human resource management – two areas closely related to psychology. For example, research projects will address questions like motivation, stress, shift work, as well as psychological issues at the individual and group levels – all within an organizational setting. Sometimes, management research wears a sociological hat and addresses issues like strategic-level planning, privatization, and small-business planning. Management Information Systems is concerned with questions, that may, as well, have some applications to computer science, i.e., Internet, intranet, competing software packages. These tools aid managers in decision-making. In Production and Operations Management (POM), interests are akin to engineering interests. POM is concerned with designing jobs, and exploring ways of designing furniture used in offices. Human research participants are involved neither in finance nor in accounting research. However, some of the research projects have included interviews, surveys and experimental components. But there is a lot of human research in Marketing Management. Business often overlaps with other areas, i.e. social sciences, engineering, medical science and security (RCMP). Research projects usually require that human subjects participate in surveys, questionnaires or interviews. Management frequently has recourse to simulations and role-playing to find out just how user-friendly certain products are. According to Dr. Lituchy, people in business schools do not seem to be too concerned with ethical issues. They assume that their research will cause no harm, coercion or deception. For example, she knows of someone from a university finance department who claims never to have had a problem with the ethics committee. Yet, this person had being going into classrooms to ask students to participate in a study. Clearly, this constitutes coercion. One of the statements from this researcher’s consent letter leaves little doubt as to the presence of coercion:
Spending 10 to 15 minutes for the sole purpose of asking people to participate in a study seems excessive. Researchers have also been interviewing senior managers from different government levels without obtaining a written consent from them, simply because they do not feel it is necessary under the circumstances. But research ethics committees clearly believe that it is necessary. Business and management faculty members generally have a problem dealing with ethics committees. They feel that members of ethics committee who are not part of business schools do not understand the special conditions of business research. One may argue that this is not true only of business schools; other faculties have voiced similar complaints. One particular ethical issue in business research is the definition we attribute to "end of study". When the consent form states that participants can withdraw from the study at any time, does it mean that they can reclaim their survey answer sheet even after they have sent it? Or does it mean that they can withdraw any time before the survey is completed? It seems reasonable to claim that if the data can be readily retrieved – i.e. if the surveys have not yet been coded and computerized – then a participant uncomfortable with the survey should be allowed to withdraw from the study. But this kind of practical reasoning does not take into consideration the promises made by the surveyor in the consent letter. If anonymity is guaranteed to the participants, then the questionnaires cannot under any circumstances be returned to them, since the absence of identification tags on the questionnaires prevents the surveyor from determining the identity of the participant. (One may note, however, that since the sender’s fax number always appears on the fax sheets, the sender’s anonymity is seriously compromised). The principle behind this reasoning is that participation ends when what is required of the participants has been completed. Once the questionnaires have been filled out and returned, the subjects’ participation in the study is officially ended. The research, however, is not completed until the research is published. Another interesting problem is how strongly it should be stressed that the participant may withdraw at any time during the study. Psychology, exercise science and education researchers argue that it should be strongly stressed. Business people, however, think that the right to withdraw is quite obvious and need not be stated. In their view, they are dealing with adults (most of them CEOs) old enough to decide whether or not to fill out a questionnaire and whether or not to send it in the mail. Why should it be specified that they are allowed to ignore the questionnaire and throw it in the garbage if they so wish? But SSHRC has always emphasized that written consent which unequivocally allows withdrawal is preferable, and that oral consent should be obtained only in extraordinary circumstances. These extraordinary circumstances, which may be uncommon in most disciplines, seem to be very common in business research. For example, a business researcher found it difficult to obtain signatures from business owners representing minority groups. They would agree to be interviewed and even taped, but they would refuse to sign their name even when reassured that it would be kept confidential. Given the fact that they are very protective of their anonymity, it seems that if their right to withdraw were too strongly emphasized, then they would simply refuse to participate. Some researchers accept minimum requirements put forth by ethics codes, i.e., the right of participants to withdraw should be simply stated. One last problem is whether or not the cover letter should mention anything about the source of funding for the study. Knowing that a study is funded, people may feel somewhat pressured to take part in the study. Overall, people in the business schools feel that the nature of their research is not properly understood by REBs. This makes them feel unduly persecuted. It appears that ethics committees are perceived strictly in terms of their thoroughness, and rarely in terms of their wisdom – which is to contribute to the quality of the research. Can we solve these communication problems? These problems cannot be explained simply by the plurality of academic backgrounds; rather, the overriding factor is that business researchers seem to have a reductive understanding of the term "scientific research". Therefore, business researchers do not consider their activities as having anything to do with ethical guidelines applying to scientific research on human beings. This is why it is vital to introduce the new Tri-Council Policy Statement into business and administration research. With this common policy, nobody will be able to opt out of ethical obligations simply because they feel "it does not really apply to them". Discussion
Spokespersons from the various working groups shared the results of their deliberations in response to the following issue: How should we reach out to the various communities for education purposes?
Implementing and Monitoring the Ethics Review Process: Issues and Challenges Chair: Carole Guzman,
Who reviews the reviewers? Issues in implementing Dr. Gordon Crelinsten, A few years ago in Montreal, a research subject died while undergoing a low-risk, non-therapeutic intervention that had no potential benefits to him. The project and the information disclosed in the informed consent process were reviewed and accepted by a research ethics board in a Montreal academic teaching hospital. When this case was subjected to the scrutiny of the law, a court found the REB negligent in accepting the protocol as presented. Although extremely rare death was known to occur with the proposed intervention, disclosure of this risk was not part of the informed consent process. The court felt that a reasonable person being asked to participate in non-therapeutic research with no personal potential benefit should be made aware of all serious material risks, no matter how remote or how rare, in order that true informed choice could occur. Research involving human subjects is a special privilege granted by society and carries with it an awesome responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of the research subject. The importance of such research is rooted in the recognized need to advance knowledge. The REBs are charged with the duty of objectively evaluating research protocols with respect to recognized research ethics guidelines, principles and criteria. Research is not without risk, not only to the health and safety of the individual, but also to the protection of confidential information, and to the beliefs, customs and social structures of collectivities. It may also present a risk to the personal and professional integrity of the investigators and to the social good in general. Because of the complexity, importance and responsibility of the task, it is appropriate to ask: who reviews the reviewers? We should be able to address this issue better once we answer the following questions:
Why is the question important? The research enterprise in Canada is a growing concern. The quest for new knowledge, the development of skilled and inquisitive research minds, the need for the development of new techniques, new technologies and new pharmaceuticals have spawned research efforts at academic and commercial sites across this country. Each protocol requires review, and the increasing demands on time and personnel are immense. Not only is there a cost to ethics review, there is also an expertise demanded which cannot be assumed to be intrinsic to the person, but rather requires knowledge, skill and training. Research ethics boards are composed of individuals who are required to interpret the ethical, to an extent scientific, appropriateness of research. Society places an emphasis on accountability of human interaction. It seems just, therefore, that the effectiveness, efficiency and conformity of individual Research Ethics Boards be open to scrutiny. Here is a snapshot of the functioning of research ethics boards in 16 Canadian faculties of medicine, based on a three-year study conducted by NCBHR’s Working Group on Evaluation. In most institutions, there were multiple REBs. In one institution, more than 30 were identified. In general, communication among REBs was poor; in some, it was nonexistent. The sharing of experience can be important in the field of ethics because, frequently problems identified by one REB have been solved or at least faced by another. The mechanisms for recording REB activity, for appeal of REB decisions, for reviewing multi-centre trials and for the evaluation of the merits of competing protocols varied widely within and across institutions. The composition of REB membership and the availability of education protocols for investigators and REB members also varied widely. Most importantly, the interpretation of certain aspects of research guidelines was highly varied. Active monitoring of on-going research was glaringly absent. Are there any models that may allow us to establish conformity of review or rules for review? One example is a document entitled Reflections on Monitoring Ethics Review of Research with Human Subjects in Canada, produced by Louis-Nicolas Fortin and Th�r�se Leroux at the request of NCBHR. An informal site visit can help detect strengths and weaknesses in a system, but it still is a weak review. On the contrary, the Canadian Council of Animal Care has established an assessment program based upon the mechanism of predetermined mandatory site visits within a formal framework of review. The advantage of this system is that it allows the development of strict and consistent criteria that can be tested and assessed for compliance. A system could be devised similar to that used to accredit health institutions. Such a system provides established evaluation procedures, whereby an institution is granted a certificate attesting that it meets predetermined criteria or standards. This accreditation system also needs to be recognized by scientific communities. The US model is prescriptive: it enforces respect for rules and regulations and thus grants investigative powers and functions as well as the ability to impose strong and binding sanctions. The future and what it holds for society demand a renewed recognition of the place of ethics and ethics review in all disciplines conducting scientific inquiries involving human subjects. This recognition would call for a system of ethics review that is helpful, resourceful, efficient and effective, based on consistent knowledge and values, and is accountable and open to review and audit. How can this be achieved? Research ethics boards must realize that governments, granting agencies and the public are increasing their demands for accountability in all aspects of social behaviour. This includes research. There is a need for performance measurement, outcome analysis and the creation of standards. The first level of review resides within the individual REB itself. The REB needs to have accurate, relevant, and clearly defined data, which represent its activities and can be used to measure and evaluate its performance. This can be accomplished only with the establishment of performance indicators that would serve as a guide to monitor, evaluate and improve the quality of ethics review. As an example, the ability to recognize adverse effects of research promptly and the ability to introduce corrective measures may be evaluated. If individual REBs are truly committed to the task of ensuring the safety and well-being of the research subject as well as the promotion of good science, then structured standards may be helpful to ensure that these goals are being met. A standard is a statement of good practice that allows for compliance evaluation. It represents requirements that must be met and it aims at the realization of values. Here are some examples of standards developed by clinical ethics boards in hospitals that could very well be applied to any REB:
The time for a laissez-faire approach to ethics committees is long past. Some form of regulatory supervision is to be expected because the activities of ethics committees are increasingly brought to bear directly on peoples’ rights. This regulatory supervision enables REBs to continue in the kind of decision-making that values and protects human dignity and freedom. The Tri-Council Policy Statement can be regarded as a series of peer-created standards, which may serve as an excellent framework for the consistent evaluation of REB performance. It could also be used by local REBs to adjust and create their own standards against which they could be evaluated. The advantages of using a national policy cannot be ignored:
The disadvantage of using a national policy is that it may, at times, lack relevance to local circumstances, which may cause this policy to lose credibility and commitment. Therefore, the REB has to be creative and set standards that are grounded in socio-cultural values. The most successful approach to setting standards normally involves a careful and considered combination of theoretical and practical experience. Published guidelines provide a theoretical foundation, and practical experience can be gained by working in REB environments. The question "Who reviews the reviewers?" is important for REBs. REB members are involved in a serious business that demands excellence and accountability. REBs should be self-critical and accepting of peer scrutiny. Discussion
New challenges to the ethics review process: perspective from the University administration Ralph Brooke, External codes are necessary. Neither the individual nor the small group is enough to provide universal ethical standards. The process of laying down acceptable ethical standards requires a larger community. This has been captured very well in the Tri-Council Policy Statement. We must also bear in mind that we live in a changing world. What was acceptable yesterday is not necessarily acceptable today. The kind of human experimentation that took place in a Montr�al psychiatric institute or the problem of omission in the treatment of syphilis in Afro-Americans would simply not be permitted today. Yet there were people who went along with this not so long ago. But times have changed, and we must acknowledge the need for appropriate ethical standards. These standards are also relative to political settings. We now know that a large number of physicians joined the Nazi party and that quite a few were involved in obscene research that was considered acceptable, according to Nazi ethics. Although the title may indicate a typical administrative point of view on the part of universities vis-� vis the Tri-Council Policy Statement, Dr. Brooke notes that his comments are based on his experience with a specific Health Sciences REB at The University of Western Ontario. These comments are also tied to the following questions prepared and sent by Dr. Carpentier: Discussion
As for the Policy Statement, it is unfortunate that its earlier drafts antagonized and even offended some researchers in the university community. Although more recent versions have largely mitigated this situation, the climate created by the early versions will make it more difficult to implement a decent document. There was an air of secrecy, of not sharing things earlier on. In short, communication did not take place. The Policy Statement is too long and its length may irritate or even antagonize people. Each of the three Research Councils should bring out a summarized working document and insist that it be made mandatory reading. The 10 Commandments barely fill one page and have served the ethical behaviour of a large portion of the civilized world for several thousand years. Perhaps the document is trying to address too many issues at once 2. People usually like to do things gradually. A gradual introduction of these changes might be better. The insistence on a Tri-Council Policy Statement complicates matters. Whole sections of the document pertain to just one Council. Their inclusion lengthens the document. A unified code cannot satisfactorily address three dramatically different research domains. There is no need for a single policy statement. It is just as easy for the Councils to monitor compliance with policies as it is to monitor a code. Making the change from Code to Policy Statement goes a long way to placate those who have opposed the document. Regardless of criticism that has been made in the past, universities will accept the revised Policy Statement as long as it is kept short, simple and less demanding on their already scarce financial resources. Comments Dr. Last reinforced strongly what Dr. Brooke said. He noted that one of the most important lessons that he has learned as an editor of medical journals and books is that brevity, clarity and readability are the watchwords. The Policy Statement is far too long. It contains several chapters that are totally irrelevant to researchers outside of the biomedical field, and may even be irrelevant to many within the field. These chapters should be placed in an appendix where they would be targeted to the appropriate constituency of researchers. Concluding remarks Dr. Henry Dinsdale, All of the speakers and guests must be wholeheartedly thanked on behalf of NCEHR. The retreat exceeded our expectations and provided an opportunity for the exchange of attitudes and opinions that we all hoped would transpire today. NCEHR will publish a document based on the papers that were presented and the many useful and judicious comments that were made. The following points are intended to summarize the retreat. Paul Bernard began by emphasizing the need to broaden the involvement of REBs in the ethics review process and the need to raise consciousness about ethics. The point that he made initially, and which has been repeated, is that ethics should really be part of the fabric of research. He noted that the issue of vulnerability often differed between disciplines. He also felt that getting people involved through REBs was very important, and that people should get credit for the time spent on their REBs. Daphne Maurer focused on the primacy of the individual, and identified some issues raised by student participation. She stressed the importance of being able to communicate our experience of working in an environment where student participation is sought. She cited the University of Toronto walk-through model as a good example of ethical student recruitment. Secondly, she focused on the issue of deception. There are different elements in the definition of deception. An adequate debriefing should address all these elements. Dorothy Counts’ presentation was of great interest to those of us who have little involvement with anthropological research. The notion of participant observation, in which the researcher becomes a part of the community, is obviously part of the fabric of anthropology. Naturalistic research, which implies working in a setting not designed for research, is little known to the biomedical investigator. Her plea for flexibility raised a few eyebrows. The reasons she gave for changing an REB-approved research protocol, due to an unpredictable turn of events, are quite understandable. Nevertheless, she insisted that ethics be considered an intrinsic part of the curriculum in anthropology. This kind of problem and the problem of clandestine research is obviously a trans-disciplinary matter that merits further discussion and debate within an REB setting. Chris Armstrong’s unique example of a stockbroker as a human subject was quite interesting. The discussion of the ethical use of information and the ethical implications of certain copyright laws was helpful in developing an awareness and sensitivity to what constitutes a research subject. Good historical research gets past the fa�ade of political actors, who obviously delight in wearing masks. Given this particular setting, how should historians conduct interviews consistent with ethical guidelines? The notions of damage and discomfort definitely assume a different meaning in these circumstances. Freedom of information is linked to privacy laws. This raises important implications. We learned from Jeff Derevensky that research is a relatively recent development in the field of education. We also learned from him that many of his colleagues simply assume that their research complies with the principle of non-maleficence, so they do not see the need for ethical reviews. Dealing with school boards may give rise to political problems that compromise the publication of findings. This recent development in the field of education constitutes a special issue for REBs. There are additional problems: can teachers be objective researchers? What about the use of archival video tapes? All of these are important issues. But educational research is not alone in ignoring ethical issues. According to Terry Lituchi and James Jans, ethics is of little concern for business and management researchers. Moreover, they feel that REBs do not understand their research. This raises the problem of the credibility of REBs. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in developing such credibility. This is a challenge for REBs. It was interesting to see that the buck stopped [the signing of consent forms] at the door of CEOs, which again raises some interesting paradigms for debate. The feedback from our groups this afternoon showed that the implementation of the Policy Statement will have to take place at a number of different levels. In order to accomplish this, a number of different groups will have to get involved:
In spite of the reservations that we have heard, NCEHR is not responsible by itself for promoting the Tri-Council Policy Statement. REBs, professional associations, and Research Councils in partnership with universities must be involved in this promotion. Education is an integral aspect of promotion. In that respect, the primary responsibility of NCEHR is to create a variety of educational tools. Thus, NCEHR will:
With his example of the death of a research subject, Gordon Crelinsten reminded us of the vital need for biomedical responsibilities. At the same time, he cautioned against trivializing the ethical implications of research in other types of human research. His important evaluation of the REB review process carried out by NCBHR, has had an enormous impact on research on human beings in this country. We do not believe that anything quite like that has taken place in any other country. Our site visits were carried out smoothly. We requested permission to visit several universities, and eventually all of these universities received us. As our requests were successful, we intend to proceed by contacting other universities in the same respectful fashion. Dr.Crelinsten’s recommendation that regulatory supervision of hospital REBs be implemented – given the tremendous impact of medical research on human beings – represents an important step toward integrating ethics into human research in this country. The importance of reviewing the reviewer was well stated. It was important to determine more precisely what is meant by standards. Standards refer simply to common principles. A standardized process is the formal application of these common principles. However, this should not be understood as a rigid process. This flexible structure does allow many applications of these common principles. Thus, the special needs of all disciplines are respected. Dr. Crelinsten’s comparison of ethical research with the status of statistics in research a few years ago was quite helpful. In those years, we learned how to make use of a statistician. Now it is part of the fabric of research, and we expect that the introduction of ethics in research will follow suit. Ralph Brooke reviewed some of the practical ramifications of this Policy Statement, and he noted that it is important that we deal with them as we promulgate this Statement across the country. He also wisely cautioned us to keep the process simple. This should help us to resolve a number of problems. In closing, I would like to thank everyone who participated in this retreat. The presentations undoubtedly will be helpful to NCEHR and its committee members as we plan our future activities. We are now aware of a range of problems, which we intend to address in our work plan. For example, we need to carefully consider how we will conduct our site visits. In a political setting, we must be prepared for the unexpected. This will be an interesting year for us. I wish to congratulate the staff at NCEHR, Richard Carpentier, Marvel
Sampson and Bernadette Misigaro, for their resourcefulness.
Without their assistance, this retreat would not have been possible. I would also like to
extend my thanks to Abbyann Lynch for mentioning the Millcroft Inn as a
site for the retreat. It has been a wonderful venue.
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Top of page | Next | Table of Contents
he National Council on Ethics in Human Research organized a retreat in March
of this year in order to educate members about some of the most important ethical issues
that occur in research in the social sciences and humanities and some other areas at the
intersection of the health and human sciences. The quality of the presentations made on
this occasion was so good that we thought it important to share this information with our
readers.
r.
Foerster, whose clinical interests are in h�matology and oncology, begins by welcoming
everyone to the session on new challenges to the ethics review process. He draws attention
to the wonderful introductory lecture to the weekend retreat delivered by Professor P.
Bernard and points out that, of all the many positive challenges emerging from the new
Tri-Council Policy Statement, the full integration of ethics into research appears to be
imperative. What this means, in part, is that we must relinquish our view of ethics as yet
another formality required to obtain subsidies.
. Does
this type of research on deception require any particular specialization on the part of
the psychologists? If so, what is the relationship between this interest in deception and
the use of special techniques by intelligence services to obtain information?
We
must be reminded that deception comes in many varieties. Probably 95% of psychologists who
conduct research on human adults use deception/manipulation in the course of their studies
— to discourage the participants from working to support the experimenter’s
hypothesis. So, in its broadest meaning, deception is not peculiar to any particular
specialization.