A highly central issue in animal ethics concerns the fact that humans are traditionally regarded as something special – as having a special dignity and integrity – and therefore enjoy an elevated level of protection. It is unrealistic to believe that we can arrive at one single reason that is valid for everybody why humans hold this exceptional position. Perhaps the philosophers are right when they say it is impossible to justify it in any other way than to say that someone born by a human thereby has the right to a certain moral protection that is not extended to other living beings. If this is indeed the case, then we have just as great a responsibility to contemplate what we should do with this special position.
Our rationality and knowledge allow us to exercise power over other animals. But with power comes responsibility – power over the animals’ situation and power over what issues we choose to research, for both the sake of the people who put their hopes in science and the sake of the animals whose lives are used to this end.
What would you do in the following situation?
Millions of people today have HIV and risk contracting AIDS if they do not receive effective inhibitor medications. A great deal of research is being conducted to find a cure for HIV/AIDS using chimpanzees which, besides humans, are the only animals that can get HIV/AIDS.
You are a member of an ethics committee on animal experiments that is to ethically evaluate a research project aiming to test the effectiveness of a potential vaccine. The researchers inform the committee that the vaccine’s effect needs to be tested on advanced AIDS, which means that the chimpanzees will be in very poor health when the actual experimenting begins.
What ethically significant aspects to you feel should be considered to ethically evaluate whether this experiment should be approved? Consider the issue from both a researcher’s and a layman’s evaluation perspective.
Sweden participate and Swedish funding bodies contribute money. Ethical standards that appear self-evident in Sweden can then be difficult to find support for in international research environments.
It is especially worrying if researchers perform their work in countries with lower ethical standards, just to take advantage of this. It can, for example, be easier to find research subjects, easier to get permission to use primates in research, cheaper to conduct studies, or involve less extensive application procedures. If these advantages come at the cost of the integrity of the research, it will in many cases involve a breach of the standards in the Declaration of Helsinki:
Physicians should consider the ethical, legal and regulatory norms and standards for research involving human subjects in their own countries as well as applicable international norms and standards. No national or international ethical, legal or regulatory requirement should reduce or eliminate any of the protections for research subjects set forth in this Declaration.
It is unacceptable for studies to violate this principle. The Norwegian National Committee for Research Ethics in Science and Technology states precise and necessary requirements, namely that
a researcher is not to conduct parts of his or her research in another country simply because it has lower ethical or safety standards than at home;
and that researchers shall inform funding bodies of divergent ethical or safety standards in the country or countries where their research is being conducted.
Another problem is that the most fundamental protection for research subjects – that the research project must be ethically reviewed before it can begin – is not always self-evident in other countries. The Declaration of Helsinki requires this review for all medical research performed on humans, and this requirement is held by many funding bodies and journals.
Here, the Swedish legal requirement of ethics review is less comprehensive. However, as mentioned earlier, in Sweden there is the option to request an advisory statement from an ethics review board regarding a project that does not formally need to be reviewed. It is good research practice to request a statement in the event research collaborations in other countries are expected to present ethical difficulties for the researchers.
The ethics review boards have no obligation to issue these advisory statements however, just the right to do so. If the regional ethics review board refuses to issue such a statement, however, this may cause profound consequences for the researchers’ chances of obtaining further funding and being published.
There are issues concerning the withdrawal of consent that are problematic for research ethics. In biobank research, the research subject has the option of withdrawing consent. If this happens, it is the responsible party at the biobank who determines whether the biological material should be destroyed – which is likely to be the research subject’s wish – or only de-identified. In the latter case, the research subject can feel tricked. In research projects using video or audio recording, the research subject is often told he or she can withdraw consent after the recording and that the tape will be destroyed. However, this is in conflict with the regulations governing archiving and storage of research material, as well as with the rules regarding withdrawal of consent in the Act concerning the Ethical Review of Research Involving Humans.
References
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4 HANDLING OF RESEARCH MATERIAL - THINK FIRST
This chapter, with the exception of Section 4.5, is the translation of a text that is virtually identical to that of Göran Hermerén’s article, “Hantering av integritetskänsligt material”.