Most of these exercises pose issues for discussion. There are no right or wrong answers, but there are more and less thoughtful answers.

Question 3.93

3.93 What is wrong?

Explain what is wrong in each of the following scenarios.

  1. Clinical trials are always ethical as long as they randomly assign patients to the treatments.
  2. The job of an institutional review board is complete when they decide to allow a study to be conducted.
  3. A treatment that has no risk of physical harm to subjects is always ethical.

3.93

(a) Determining if a clinical trial is ethical or not involves evaluating the potential harm done to subjects; it has nothing to do with random assignment. (b) Once research begins, the board should monitor the study's progress at least once a year. (c) A treatment can pose other forms of harm to subjects that aren't just physical.