Ethical concerns

There are addifiortal situations in which ethical concerns can influence the dynamics of a mentoring relationship a fundamental aspect of the mentor-mentee relationship is that each has privileged access to the other. Mentees may be encouraged to disclose information about current or potential problems that could be damaging to their ovm career or reputation if widely revealed. Likewise, mentors might share a personal disaster to help mentees anticipate and avoid a similar pitfall. In either case, both parties have a professional obligation to the relationship to not exploit the other s disclosures. 

NR Cutler, JJ Sramek. Scientific and ethical concerns in clinical trials in Alzheimer s patients the bridging study. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 48 421-428, 1995. 

However, this request of more animal testing faces several issues. There is an ethical concern on the millions of animals used every year for experiments. These tests are also highly expensive. Thus, this poses questions about the costs for these experiments and the resources available to cover them. Many of these tests, especially those chronic, require a long time, years in some cases. The number of available laboratories in Europe to cover this potential request is insufficient. 

As detailed in Torjusen el al. (2004), central social and ethical concerns among consumers of organic food are related to ... 

When relating this to a control system that aims to minimise the risk of disappointing the consumer, we need to distinguish the following kinds of problems that can arise from the need to address the social and ethical concerns of consumers ... 

Although there are several ethical concerns with biobanks and other large-scale research repositories (Rothstein, 2002), the most important issue is informed consent. Participants in research involving human subjects must be advised of the intended research to be performed with their specimens. With biobanks, however, the future research uses of the samples are unknown at the time of collection. It would be infeasible to contact each of the donors to obtain consent every time a new research use is contemplated, yet IRBs are reluctant to approve the use of blanket consent for unspecified uses. One way to avoid this problem is for prospective sample donors to be given a menu of possible uses of their samples. Such a list might include research in mental health, HIV/AIDS, cancer, cardiovascular disease, or other areas. The donors would then have the opportunity to approve the use of their specimens for all or some of the listed uses. Other disclosures necessary to obtain informed consent include the financial interests of the biobank and researchers, whether individuals may elect to be notified of research findings, and whether it is possible for an individual to withdraw his or her sample from the bank (Rothstein, 2002). 

There are several areas where a therapeutic relationship can typically go wrong and cause ethical concerns. The first area of concern has to do with finances. Since counseling and therapy often involve payment, it is important to try to divorce therapy as much as possible from the financial aspects of the business of therapy. However, this is not always possible, especially if you are in private practice and you are your own accountant, too A rule of thumb is this If you cannot treat a client without bias because bills are not being paid, then you have no business treating the client any longer. A therapeutic referral must be made. There is no possible way that you can give your best effort to a client when you are sore about not getting paid. 

Commentary This problem demonstrates that potential health issues receive high priority. While many possible sources of the fish kill were identified, they were likely approached simultaneously and the most obvious sources were eliminated from consideration first. While there may be some ethical concerns with the use of live fish as a pollution detector, it is important to solve this problem in the most efficient manner possible, at least until it is determined whether this is a human health concern. 

Because gene therapy involves making changes to the body s set of basic instructions, it raises many unique ethical concerns. The ethical questions surrounding gene therapy include ... 

This type of therapy typically consists of injecting DNA into a pronucleus. The DNA can then be incorporated into aU cells of the organism, including the gametes. This type of therapy was first used successfully in the mouse nearly 20 years ago, and in many ways it is technically easier than somatic cell therapy. However, most injected embryos die, and some develop tumors and various malformations. In addition, there are ethical concerns about the permanent modification of our genetic legacy. Consequently, germline therapy is not currently practiced in humans. 

Over the years, scientific research with human subjects has provided valuable information to help characterize and control risks to public health, but its use has also raised particular ethical concerns for the welfare of the human participants in such research as well as scientific issues related to the role of such research in assessing risks. Society has responded to these concerns by defining general standards for conducting human research. As an example, studies carried out for the authorization of a medical product, have to be conducted in line with the World Medical Association s Declaration of Helsinki, which describes the general ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects (World Medical Association 2004). The Helsinki Declaration was first issued by the World Medical Association in 1964 and has been revised several times since then. 

Purposely selecting a low dose outside the therapeutic range, or even a dose that is thought to be marginally effective, raises the same ethical concerns as use of a placebo. 

Given the ethical concerns about placebo-controlled study designs, several alternative procedures to reduce bias in clinical trials have been proposed ... 

This option assumes a comparable or even standard placebo response rate for historical data and the current trial. The historical improvement rate (on placebo or without any treatment) is then used for purposes of comparison with results of subsequent non-placebo-controlled studies involving the same investigator and protocol design but different drugs. For historical placebo response data it is recommended that a small placebo treatment arm is used for safety data purposes and to avoid observer bias although this proposal may resolve or diminish some ethical concerns, it raises a number of scientific problems ... 

While the success in animal cloning is a major achievement, it also raises ethical concerns about attempts to use parallel technology to clone humans. This strategy has been shown to be a viable one for mice, pigs, goats, and cattle. The donor nucleus can be engineered and faithfully and efficiently produced as animal clones that... 

The best evidence about the effects of chemical exposure on human health would come from clinical trials, but they are generally not used because of ethical concerns about experimentation on humans. Even when clinical drug trials are conducted, the prohibitive cost of large studies means that the smallest incidence change that can be detected is about 1 percent. 

Fraser D., Weary, D.M., Pajor, E.A. and Milligan, B.N. 1997. A scientific concept of animal welfare that reflects ethical concerns. Animal Welfare 6 187-205. 

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