Exploring Bioethics - NIH Office of Science Education - National ...

What Are the Relevant Ethical Considerations?ConRespect for persons and fairness were violated. The study provided an undue inducementbecause students were given a coveted spot in Willowbrook in a newer part of the facility ifthey participated in the research. Parents and their children were not truly informed aboutthe risks of the study. Also, the study could have been done with adults in the facility insteadof children.Respect for Persons• Children in a mental health facility can’t fully understand the risks of a study they are participating in.• The methods by which children were recruited are also questionable. Parents were unduly inducedto give their consent. For example, when the main school was closed to new admissions in 1964due to overcrowding, parents were told there were openings in the hepatitis unit for children whocould participate in the study. The public outcry over this case was largely due to the impression thatparents had little choice over whether or not to participate in the research. Parents who wanted carefor their children may not have had any other options.• It is not appropriate to use a vulnerable, institutionalized population for experiments. Feeding livehepatitis virus to mentally disabled children in order to deliberately infect them does not respectthem as persons.Copyright © 2009 Education Development Center, Inc. Exploring Bioethics.Permission granted for classroom use.Unfair Aspects (Fairness)• There is no compelling reason to study viral hepatitis in children before studying it in adults; noneof the 1,000 adults working at Willowbrook was enlisted for the study. Why wasn’t the researchconducted on them first?• Hepatitis was present at high levels because of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, which thehealthcare professionals had a duty to improve. Instead, they took advantage of the situation toconduct an experiment.Master 5.4 (Page 4 of 4)