Listen to the audio podcast below. What is your reaction to this ethical dilemma?
Audio podcast transcript under the cut.
This exercise will help to illustrate a real ethical dilemma that scientific researchers face in the course of their work.
Imagine the class is divided up into groups of six. Two are medical researchers, two are from a drug company that is sponsoring this particular study, and two represent members of the public, specifically families of patients that this study could benefit.
The sponsors are from a drug company that has developed a drug that they believe could cure all types of cancers.
The medical researchers have been undergoing patient trials on cancer patients, and after one year, the drug has had strange results.
Cancerous tumors seem to shrink dramatically with the first treatment. However, after one year of constant treatment with the drug, there seems to be a pattern emerging of tumors suddenly returning at an alarming rate, and two patients have died.
What do the researchers tell the sponsors and the public about this drug?
There are several outcomes to this ethical dilemma. Scientific research is supposed to be objective and focused on what actually happens, rather than a desired result.
However, if the researchers disclose all information about the trial results to the sponsors, the sponsors might stop the trial before more information can emerge. The goal of a drug company is to assure the public and the medical community that the medication they produce is safe, but they also need to make money so that they can develop more medications.
If the drug company knows that prolonged usage of this drug seems to cause explosive growth in tumors, the sponsors might try to suppress the results of the study because it would give the impression that this drug is not safe.
One would hope that the sponsors would also discontinue any possible plans for using this treatment for cancer patients, unless a new study tested its potential as a short-term tumor shrinkage treatment, rather than a long term treatment.
Another outcome is that the researchers refuse to disclose information about the study to the sponsors and finish their study. However, once the findings are published, the sponsors still might try to suppress the results of the study.
So where does that leave the public? Should the public know about the potential short-term benefits and the long-term dangers? Should the study just be abandoned, with no reports made to the public?
You decide. What do you think?
