Ethical Dimensions of Research Study

Health related medical research and all investigative research are associated with some primary ethical considerations.  The primary  ethical  issues  that are involved  in the  assessment  of research  are  confidentiality and anonymity respect,  privacy respect, beneficence which implies that the participants are  not supposed to be harmed  and  more  importantly  informed consent (Shamoo & Resnik, 2009).  Informed consent implies that the participants must be intelligent, knowing and engage in the research voluntarily with clear description of the research and its intensions.  This is the primary mean through which the autonomy of participants is enhanced.  In addition the participants should not be harmed and rather they should benefit. Their privacy and confidentiality should not be violated since they are entitled to anonymity (Davis, 2008).

Homeless  individuals  who are  characterized  by severe mental  disorder  are  actively  being  recruited  by  pharmaceutical corporations  on contract basis  in testing experimental medicines. Most of the individuals are willingly participating in the exercise because they hold the belief that it is a technical activity that occurs in the medical industry.  The reality is however different since they are  not given details  regarding the research and the  outsourcing of  participants is aimed  at  reducing the involved costs  and period  of  assessment which is working for  the corporation (Perry, 2014).

From the  case  it is  clear  that the primary  ethical  issues  regarding  medical  ethics  during research  are being violated.  Despite the fact that the participants  play  part knowingly  their understanding  can be doubted  by their severe  mental disorder  and the fact that the companies  fails to inform them on how the  experiments are  being utilized.  The  benefits  are  obtained by the corporations while  the  minority  groups  rights such as  privacy,  confidentiality and anonymity are not  maintain.

 

 

            References

Davis, S. (2008). Handbook of Research Methods in Experimental Psychology. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.

Perry, S. (2014). Recruitment  of homeless people  for drugs  trial  raises serious ethical  issues. Retrieved from https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2014/08/recruitment-homeless-people-drug-trials-raises-serious-ethical-issues-u-bioet

Shamoo, A. E., & Resnik, D. B. (2009). Responsible conduct of research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.