In my group at work, we have been accused of having a group of philosophers and a group of doers. This is typically mentioned with some serious disgust. As if having a group of people thinking about how the business is run is a bad thing. I think part of it stems from the idea that this means that they aren't doing anything productive or value added for the company. The perception is incorrect of course. The "philosophers" are actually a process improvement methodology team that provides course development, course training, mentoring for Lean Six Sigma certification, continual guidance for projects in flight and manages projects themselves. There are only two of them. That's a tall order to be honest.
But the idea of a philosophy group really got me thinking. Would it be a bad thing to have a group that looks at the ethical, moral or sustainable behavior of the company? I lump sustainability in with the morality and ethical question, because in a lot of ways sustainability is not looking to be a social issue and is another way of looking at the ethics of recycling and energy usage. I've talked about morality and MBA's specifically in my last post. Singling out the MBA crowd might not have been the fair as there is no reason why engineers couldn't behave in unethical ways, there's no requirement for engineers to take ethics courses.
Why does this matter? Well, we've seen a huge number of seemingly unethical choices coming out of companies. In some cases they may have been selected in a harmless way. For example the new MacBook Pros have a glued on battery, the choice may have been made to reduce the amount of time it takes to secure the battery. Putting a fast acting glue on the battery may have accomplished this, while screwing in the battery would take more time. This selection could have been made without the consideration of the repairability or replacability for components within the laptop. However, since this is Apple I'm talking about here, I find this unlikely. The next question would be, was this choice unethical? From a sustainability perspective it could be construed in that manner, which iFixit does do just that. The computer also lost its environmental certification by using the glue and some of the other design characteristics. This design also continues with Apple's decisions to make it more difficult to upgrade or do anything with their product once you've bought. This increases the number of times you have to purchase their products and exasperates the throwaway culture of many other products.
Consumers are also starting to become more aware of the unethical behavior of companies. We've seen this with the recent banking scandals, we've seen this with the investigation into Foxconn and we're likely to see it moving forward in other sectors. We're starting to hear about more unethical behavior in the ag industries, in regard to their treatment of animals or in the case of Monsanto basically suing farmers when seeds of their crops land in their field. The increase in consumer awareness through the increased usage of social media and other social networking tools is going to significantly increase both information and disinformation about these topics.
It is likely that there will be an increase in the number of watch dog organizations in existence and more reliance on government agencies, like the Consumer Protection agency in the US now. The banks have argued for a long time that these regulations are unnecessary as they can regulate themselves. We do know that profit pressures can prevent ethical behavior and encourage unethical behavior. Perhaps it's time that every organization has an Internal Affairs organization similar to what the police have. I do not believe that these organizations are perfect and can become corrupt (or have the appearance of being corrupt), but I think that they can be useful.
Penn State is going to have to set up an organization like this. I think for the University this was going to be required for them to even have a chance at ever regaining their credibility. The records for that group need to be wide open for everyone to view. I think this type of office needs to be in any publicly traded company. It will ensure greater transparency, allow watch dog groups and consumers to choose the actual ethical companies and these groups would be auditable. This could be a certification process similar to ISO9001 (a manufacturing document control quality system), where the members of the team are given ethics training in a wide range of topics including morality and then are expected to train the employees of the company, CEO included.
By creating organizations such as this, companies can greatly clarify how their behavior is ethical and moral. Once several large companies create agencies like this other companies will be shamed into doing it as well. Thus increasing the number of Philosopher CEOs out there.
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Monday, July 23, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
MBAs, Ethics and Morals
Yesterday on Facebook I started quite the little discussion after posting a discussion about MBA education based on an article on Bloomberg. The author of the article, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Essentially the article argues that the method used to discuss ethics results in amoral education. What this is saying isn't that they are teaching a lack of morality, it's that they aren't teaching the actual moral result of these choices in a way that makes it clear that one option is moral while the other is not. Without explicitly stating which option is moral or immoral, it can create ambiguity (we know that business people hate uncertainty) and the illusion that either one of the options could be moral.
Why does this cause a problem? First, not many people actually have any education in ethics to begin with. If someone put together a list of 8 must take classes ethics would be somewhere around 100. Ethics courses aren't easy and they make you really look at how you think about things, figure out why you think that way and try to make you change the way you think. They aren't always successful, but ethical thinking is like critical thinking, the more exposure you have to it the more you are able to practice it. The second reason why this is a problem, is that many people going into business school may have less scruples, be willing to take advantage of people or are amoral. Not everyone is, but we know from research that business leaders tend to have personality traits of psychopaths. We also know that in games like prisoner's dilemma business leaders act the most ruthless (same goes for economists). The only question is the direction of causality. Does business school create these types of people, does it exacerbate these personality types or do these people go into business already behaving in these manners? I don't know the answer to that question.
While I was in the Netherlands I listened to a seminar that discussed the way that ethics is taught within the Dutch military. All new recruits must go through ethics courses and then every so many years they are required to recertify on the ethics course. The goal is to bring in new officers with a sense of ethical norms that can prevent atrocities and allow officers to do the right thing when they need to. Of course the military believes there is a fine line between creating a thinking solider and a solider that ends up in analysis paralysis because they are going through too many ethical situations in their mind. The goal of the education is to ingrain many of these ethical situations so reaction is more instinctual even for the ethical choice.
I believe that there is a similar balance that needs to be considered in business. What are the social norms for ethical behavior in many institutions? Well, I think that this really does depend on the institution and the environment that they are in. I think there are no ethical norms within the big banks, which has been played out over and over again with the sub prime, then LIBOR and now HSBC's money laundering. Perhaps the ethics are there, it's just considered ethical to make as much money as you can without getting caught doing something that is obviously screwing someone over. The question becomes, can a truly ethical MBA graduate come into an environment and succeed? I think that they will be able to do well compared to your average person, but they will quickly be out shined by their unethical colleagues. These are businessmen, they understand incentives well, so they will adjust their behavior based on their incentives. This is a normal and rational thing to do.
Are there ways to instill more ethical behavior at companies? I think there are ways. Some are through legal changes, which lower the bar for what is considered a crime when it comes to fraud and unethical behavior. This would either drive the behavior more underground (likely) or change some of it. Other ways would be through forcing a cultural norm where these companies are punished through lack of investment and loss of business. This one has a coordination issue. Many people have no qualms about ethical issues that would use a service like this. Additionally, the sheer number of firms behaving unethically makes it unrealistic for a person to buy ethically made products. I wrote about this at the Urban Times, noting that Apple is being singled out when the entire industry behaves in this manner.
Ethics needs to be taught at many different levels, it encourages critical thinking and self reflection. Developing ethical leaders in all respects of business and politics should be a goal of all universities. However, ethics courses are being cut and many people just don't see the value in them.
Why does this cause a problem? First, not many people actually have any education in ethics to begin with. If someone put together a list of 8 must take classes ethics would be somewhere around 100. Ethics courses aren't easy and they make you really look at how you think about things, figure out why you think that way and try to make you change the way you think. They aren't always successful, but ethical thinking is like critical thinking, the more exposure you have to it the more you are able to practice it. The second reason why this is a problem, is that many people going into business school may have less scruples, be willing to take advantage of people or are amoral. Not everyone is, but we know from research that business leaders tend to have personality traits of psychopaths. We also know that in games like prisoner's dilemma business leaders act the most ruthless (same goes for economists). The only question is the direction of causality. Does business school create these types of people, does it exacerbate these personality types or do these people go into business already behaving in these manners? I don't know the answer to that question.
While I was in the Netherlands I listened to a seminar that discussed the way that ethics is taught within the Dutch military. All new recruits must go through ethics courses and then every so many years they are required to recertify on the ethics course. The goal is to bring in new officers with a sense of ethical norms that can prevent atrocities and allow officers to do the right thing when they need to. Of course the military believes there is a fine line between creating a thinking solider and a solider that ends up in analysis paralysis because they are going through too many ethical situations in their mind. The goal of the education is to ingrain many of these ethical situations so reaction is more instinctual even for the ethical choice.
I believe that there is a similar balance that needs to be considered in business. What are the social norms for ethical behavior in many institutions? Well, I think that this really does depend on the institution and the environment that they are in. I think there are no ethical norms within the big banks, which has been played out over and over again with the sub prime, then LIBOR and now HSBC's money laundering. Perhaps the ethics are there, it's just considered ethical to make as much money as you can without getting caught doing something that is obviously screwing someone over. The question becomes, can a truly ethical MBA graduate come into an environment and succeed? I think that they will be able to do well compared to your average person, but they will quickly be out shined by their unethical colleagues. These are businessmen, they understand incentives well, so they will adjust their behavior based on their incentives. This is a normal and rational thing to do.
Are there ways to instill more ethical behavior at companies? I think there are ways. Some are through legal changes, which lower the bar for what is considered a crime when it comes to fraud and unethical behavior. This would either drive the behavior more underground (likely) or change some of it. Other ways would be through forcing a cultural norm where these companies are punished through lack of investment and loss of business. This one has a coordination issue. Many people have no qualms about ethical issues that would use a service like this. Additionally, the sheer number of firms behaving unethically makes it unrealistic for a person to buy ethically made products. I wrote about this at the Urban Times, noting that Apple is being singled out when the entire industry behaves in this manner.
Ethics needs to be taught at many different levels, it encourages critical thinking and self reflection. Developing ethical leaders in all respects of business and politics should be a goal of all universities. However, ethics courses are being cut and many people just don't see the value in them.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Ethics in Politics?
"Who put the question mark there, you all know he'll read whatever is on the prompter!" Mostly a quote from the movie Anchorman. The point is, should that question mark be there or not? In the US, the STOCK Act, designed to prevent insider trading by Congressmen, is moving forward for debate in the Senate. This type of law, even if there are debates about the need for this specific law because it should already be illegal, really drives the point home. Clearly, this is something that the majority of us would consider unethical. In business ethics courses (heh), this type of action is typically considered a big no-no and at many work places is considered very bad as well.
A personal example for me came from working at Verizon Wireless. My first co-op rotation there I was an equipment engineer, where I bought equipment and work with companies to build cell sites. For a Sophomore in college this was pretty awesome. I was buying stuff that was worth something like $40,000 like it was nothing. Pretty cool stuff right? Well, I started to deal with vendors and learned that no vendor was allowed to buy any of us lunch. Not even lunch. If anything was worth more than $25 as a gift, we had to return it.
Now, if you put this into perspective of what insider trading or campaign contributions, we can see where there's an ethical problem. I was making $16/hour at the time, so $25 bucks was almost a quarter of a work day's salary. Pretty big deal. Insider trading has made congress members a much higher return on their salary than that 25 bucks was for me. The perks provided by Lobbyists are even worse than lunch. They'll buy you lunch, but it won't be at Primanti Brother's, it will be at some place that's $100 a plate plus wine, then take you golfing later.
So where does this disconnect come from? If this is something that I knew was wrong when I was 20, why don't these Congress members understand that at 50 and older? One of the problems are social norms, if everyone is doing it, why aren't you? These social norms can be extremely powerful, as teenagers we were always warned about peer pressure to do drugs and stuff, cause drugs are bad, m'kay? The problem would become when everyone around you was doing this, and it was the only way to survive the situation there are powerful urges to conform.
Once someone has conformed, these social norms become their own self reinforcing type of "ethical" behavior. This begs the question if the end justify the means? Well, we also need to be aware if the ends are justified at all. I think in many cases, the ends are so influenced in both conscious and unconscious ways, that we don't even know what the ends the politician set out to achieve are any more.
This is why it is important to have independent watch dog organizations and an independent judicial system. It is also why it is important to get money out of politics. Once money is out, the choices aren't captured by the interests of the people paying you. Independence allows impartial review and a manner to determine which course is actually best for the whole.
Americans prize their rights, however, rights are threatened whenever there are powerful interests that want to limit those rights. Despite the fact that I talk about the US on here a lot, these ideas are transnational, and all citizens need to work to remove the influence of money from their political system. There are ways to do it. For the US Lawrence Lessig has proposed one idea in Republic, Lost and Reddit is working on their on PAC and Free Internet Act as another solution.
When I finish with my thesis I plan to become active in both Reddit activities and I suggest you look to find something similar.
A personal example for me came from working at Verizon Wireless. My first co-op rotation there I was an equipment engineer, where I bought equipment and work with companies to build cell sites. For a Sophomore in college this was pretty awesome. I was buying stuff that was worth something like $40,000 like it was nothing. Pretty cool stuff right? Well, I started to deal with vendors and learned that no vendor was allowed to buy any of us lunch. Not even lunch. If anything was worth more than $25 as a gift, we had to return it.
Now, if you put this into perspective of what insider trading or campaign contributions, we can see where there's an ethical problem. I was making $16/hour at the time, so $25 bucks was almost a quarter of a work day's salary. Pretty big deal. Insider trading has made congress members a much higher return on their salary than that 25 bucks was for me. The perks provided by Lobbyists are even worse than lunch. They'll buy you lunch, but it won't be at Primanti Brother's, it will be at some place that's $100 a plate plus wine, then take you golfing later.
So where does this disconnect come from? If this is something that I knew was wrong when I was 20, why don't these Congress members understand that at 50 and older? One of the problems are social norms, if everyone is doing it, why aren't you? These social norms can be extremely powerful, as teenagers we were always warned about peer pressure to do drugs and stuff, cause drugs are bad, m'kay? The problem would become when everyone around you was doing this, and it was the only way to survive the situation there are powerful urges to conform.
Once someone has conformed, these social norms become their own self reinforcing type of "ethical" behavior. This begs the question if the end justify the means? Well, we also need to be aware if the ends are justified at all. I think in many cases, the ends are so influenced in both conscious and unconscious ways, that we don't even know what the ends the politician set out to achieve are any more.
This is why it is important to have independent watch dog organizations and an independent judicial system. It is also why it is important to get money out of politics. Once money is out, the choices aren't captured by the interests of the people paying you. Independence allows impartial review and a manner to determine which course is actually best for the whole.
Americans prize their rights, however, rights are threatened whenever there are powerful interests that want to limit those rights. Despite the fact that I talk about the US on here a lot, these ideas are transnational, and all citizens need to work to remove the influence of money from their political system. There are ways to do it. For the US Lawrence Lessig has proposed one idea in Republic, Lost and Reddit is working on their on PAC and Free Internet Act as another solution.
When I finish with my thesis I plan to become active in both Reddit activities and I suggest you look to find something similar.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Good men are hard to find
This week my grandfather, Paul Joseph Kapsar Sr., passed away. He was a good man. He was honest, caring and willing to help those in need. His service was beautiful and I'm extremely grateful I was able to come back to be part of the service. He's had a serious impact on my life and the way I look at things, because he was honest and respected honesty. He respected hard work and was never afraid to get his hands dirty. We need more people like my grandpa. People that are reliable and that you can trust to do the right thing.
Despite all his great qualities society never rewarded him the way that it rewards the cut throat businessmen. My grandpa didn't pass away a rich man in money, but in life. I feel that in many ways he was significantly better off than those that are willing to compromise their morals and ethics to make more money or to get reelected.
I think that we need people like my grandfather in positions of authority. Why? He was ethical and would have come up with a balanced approach to dealing with the economic crisis rather than the brutal or over coddling approach of the republicans or democrats respectively. He would not be a supporter of SOPA or of the recent changes of the NDAA which limit our freedoms. He was a vet and cherished everything that came with protecting the United States.
His passing has made me realize the pitiful state of our country's leadership. The republican primary is a contest between who is willing to go lower. Gingrich is willing to destroy the check and balances of the Constitution. Romney doesn't open his mouth without lying about his opponents or Obama. Perry is one of the biggest bigots on earth. The only republican willing to stand beside his ethics and moral positions is Ron Paul and his economic policies would be disastrous. Lamar Smith the guy pushing SOPA, will vote for a bill even whenever an argument pointed out how flawed the bill was, and he agreed with the argument.
Our financial sector things that they are entitled to whatever type of bonuses they are getting handed out and decry free loaders that get unemployment, when they have been given more government money than all of the American People combined. It would have been cheaper for the federal government to give money to the home owners to buy underwater houses than to save the banks.
Our country is experiencing a moral bankruptcy which seems destined to drive it into the ground. The future is made all the darker when a great man like my grandfather has passed away.
Despite all his great qualities society never rewarded him the way that it rewards the cut throat businessmen. My grandpa didn't pass away a rich man in money, but in life. I feel that in many ways he was significantly better off than those that are willing to compromise their morals and ethics to make more money or to get reelected.
I think that we need people like my grandfather in positions of authority. Why? He was ethical and would have come up with a balanced approach to dealing with the economic crisis rather than the brutal or over coddling approach of the republicans or democrats respectively. He would not be a supporter of SOPA or of the recent changes of the NDAA which limit our freedoms. He was a vet and cherished everything that came with protecting the United States.
His passing has made me realize the pitiful state of our country's leadership. The republican primary is a contest between who is willing to go lower. Gingrich is willing to destroy the check and balances of the Constitution. Romney doesn't open his mouth without lying about his opponents or Obama. Perry is one of the biggest bigots on earth. The only republican willing to stand beside his ethics and moral positions is Ron Paul and his economic policies would be disastrous. Lamar Smith the guy pushing SOPA, will vote for a bill even whenever an argument pointed out how flawed the bill was, and he agreed with the argument.
Our financial sector things that they are entitled to whatever type of bonuses they are getting handed out and decry free loaders that get unemployment, when they have been given more government money than all of the American People combined. It would have been cheaper for the federal government to give money to the home owners to buy underwater houses than to save the banks.
Our country is experiencing a moral bankruptcy which seems destined to drive it into the ground. The future is made all the darker when a great man like my grandfather has passed away.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Economics, Philosophy and Science
However, it's important to understand what we're protesting and why. It was clear from the beginning of the OWS movement that most of the people didn't really understand what they were protesting. Very broad general things like Wall Street making too much money or the fact that no one has gone to jail. I think it's important that for protesting to be effective the leaders and a majority of the protesters need to be well educated on what it is exactly they are protesting.
In this case the protesters needed to be educated on economics and philosophy/morality. Why economics, those guys are like the bad guys man? Well, sadly, to have an actual conversation with these people you need to speak their language. You don't have to actually accept their assumptions as true or accurate, but you need to be well educated on the topics. Additionally, if you are well educated on economics, you'll know there are different capitalist perspectives on economics that indicate that a more equal society is a safer and happier society. Using evolutionary economics, policies can be crafted to help protect economies from crashes. In addition, being educated in slightly beyond the basic supply demand curve, it will help prevent the wool from being pulled over our eyes. This will also allow more members of our society to enter public discourse and understand and speak intelligently about the topics that impact all of us. People will actually understand what socialism and communism actually mean.
In addition to a good economic ground work, we also need to understand some basic philosophy. People are accused of moral relativism, we need to know what it actually means (morality is flexible based on the situation) and how that impacts people's actions. We also need to know when our leaders are behaving morally, immorally and what sort of freedoms we should be giving to people. Our country is founded on the philosophical ideas of the enlightenment. The US government was founded on rights, which all people should have regardless of sex, race or whatever. This includes speech and protest. If these are within our rights, then we need to protect them from people that believe it is their right to physically assault you when you exercise your rights. Morality and ethics can also drive our legislature to define laws based on humanist principles to ensure living wages and the right to live for all people. Or at least the need to create the social mobility claim to have in our society. Decreasing costs of education reduces the initial burden after school which allows people to take more risks, which may allow them to move from one social strata to the next. These should be done for moral reasons and because education and research has been shown both neoclassical economics and evolutionary economics to be a huge driver of sustained economic growth.
We also need a strong scientific foundation, which will provide a healthy dose of skepticism for government and data published by any group on either side. It gives the tools to decide if we should accept these data or open our tool box and figure out where the flaw in the data is. Science is the driver of current economic growth. It is what allows the next big break through at the platform level. We've had several platforms, coal, steel, rail, and we're currently on the silicon platform/computing platform. To develop new platforms we need to continue to drive to the frontier of science.
Our founding fathers embodied these ideals. Jefferson was a philosopher that wrote his own version of the bible. He and Franklin were both accomplished scientists. All of them believed in the rights of the people that exist not because they are given to them by the government, but because they are natural rights all people have. It is important that we acknowledge these rights and make sure we are educated in these topics to ensure an actual debate over the problems we're facing as a society. Without being educated in the importance of these topics we'll begin to argue based on the best sound byte and not on the content of the message.
In closing, all people need to become literate in these topics to provide the best foundation for an argument. Without being able to speak the right language, you'll sound like whining children that's wondering like a child lost in the woods, or out of your element if you will. With these tools, anyone can talk coherently and powerfully against the very things our own government protests in other countries.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Ethics in Science
So, right now the UK is in a big uproar about ethics in science. There have been parliamentary hearings which have deeply concerned scientists. In one opinion piece from the guardian the author argues that it's been too long going that the scientific community has been able to function without some sort of regulation. Scientists of course object to this. Because there is a method to the manner in which they work. Many, from the tone at the hearings, feel this is another assault on the scientific community.
However, it maybe that there's some scientific work that is more likely to have fraudulent activity in it. Today the Guardian published an article about scientific ghost writers. Scientific Ghost writers can come in two forms. The first is harmless where the author is really the person that got the funding. Depending on the journal these authors are either the second or very last author on the paper. This is normal, as typically you're working in that person's lab and they are paying you. So they should get some credit for the work done as they may also have had an advising role. The second kind of ghost writing is much worse. These writers were in no way associated with the research and their names are put on the article to give it weight, or if they were the ones supposed to be doing the research and some one else did it. In the Guardian article they are focusing on clinical trials for medicines.
This isn't the only country where fraud, exaggerating claims or ghost writing occurs. Although, the UK has had one of the most famous cases with the retracted article linking MMR vaccine to Autism (meaning it was fraud). This also happens in the US and in many clinical trials. In fact a Greek doctor has made it his mission to unearth clinical trial fraud and really understand what was going on there. The Atlantic had a great write up about this in November of 2010. The doctor Ioannidis has been making a career out of debunking claims as well as researching the causes of these problems. He argues that the double blind clinical trial isn't giving us the best results we could possibly be getting in medical science. Although, he doesn't offer a huge amount of alternatives.
The New York Times also ran a story about in September of last 2010 about some of the ethics behind clinical trials. This article discusses how two cousins ended up in the same trial and one cousin was given the treatment and the other was not. It was a story that was really questioning the ethics of the clinical trial, because it was obviously working. However, pushing through these treatments without fulling testing them can be just as dangerous. Granted these people were near the end as it was. The cousin that didn't receive the new treatment died from only getting the chemo.
One the one hand we want to get promising medicine out as fast as possible. However, we want to ensure we are properly testing these medicines to ensure safety. This leads to a great deal of ethical concerns. For promising medicines do we make exceptions? Do we allow fully untested medicine into the wild? These are difficult questions. From an ethical and moral standpoint allowing a patient to die because of a randomized test is very questionable, which is what happened in the case above. However, in some cases rushing through medicines like these end up causing deaths in other manners. In the case of Vioxx this is exactly what happened. In many people it reduced the risk while in others it out right killed them. Where is the balance? I think this is why the UK is pushing for more oversight in these cases.
*Note: my dad, a nurse practitioner pointed out that i was slightly wrong about Vioxx. He's correct. There were more ethical problems than the fact it was a bad drug. Simply the creators of Vioxx hid the fact that it impacted african americans differently than white americans. If Vioxx hadn't done this it wouldn't have been a problem for the drug to stay on the market. If you want to read more about Vioxx there's a chapter in the book Denialism By Michael Specter
In my next blog I'll discuss scientific fraud and ethics in other fields.
However, it maybe that there's some scientific work that is more likely to have fraudulent activity in it. Today the Guardian published an article about scientific ghost writers. Scientific Ghost writers can come in two forms. The first is harmless where the author is really the person that got the funding. Depending on the journal these authors are either the second or very last author on the paper. This is normal, as typically you're working in that person's lab and they are paying you. So they should get some credit for the work done as they may also have had an advising role. The second kind of ghost writing is much worse. These writers were in no way associated with the research and their names are put on the article to give it weight, or if they were the ones supposed to be doing the research and some one else did it. In the Guardian article they are focusing on clinical trials for medicines.
This isn't the only country where fraud, exaggerating claims or ghost writing occurs. Although, the UK has had one of the most famous cases with the retracted article linking MMR vaccine to Autism (meaning it was fraud). This also happens in the US and in many clinical trials. In fact a Greek doctor has made it his mission to unearth clinical trial fraud and really understand what was going on there. The Atlantic had a great write up about this in November of 2010. The doctor Ioannidis has been making a career out of debunking claims as well as researching the causes of these problems. He argues that the double blind clinical trial isn't giving us the best results we could possibly be getting in medical science. Although, he doesn't offer a huge amount of alternatives.
The New York Times also ran a story about in September of last 2010 about some of the ethics behind clinical trials. This article discusses how two cousins ended up in the same trial and one cousin was given the treatment and the other was not. It was a story that was really questioning the ethics of the clinical trial, because it was obviously working. However, pushing through these treatments without fulling testing them can be just as dangerous. Granted these people were near the end as it was. The cousin that didn't receive the new treatment died from only getting the chemo.
One the one hand we want to get promising medicine out as fast as possible. However, we want to ensure we are properly testing these medicines to ensure safety. This leads to a great deal of ethical concerns. For promising medicines do we make exceptions? Do we allow fully untested medicine into the wild? These are difficult questions. From an ethical and moral standpoint allowing a patient to die because of a randomized test is very questionable, which is what happened in the case above. However, in some cases rushing through medicines like these end up causing deaths in other manners. In the case of Vioxx this is exactly what happened. In many people it reduced the risk while in others it out right killed them. Where is the balance? I think this is why the UK is pushing for more oversight in these cases.
*Note: my dad, a nurse practitioner pointed out that i was slightly wrong about Vioxx. He's correct. There were more ethical problems than the fact it was a bad drug. Simply the creators of Vioxx hid the fact that it impacted african americans differently than white americans. If Vioxx hadn't done this it wouldn't have been a problem for the drug to stay on the market. If you want to read more about Vioxx there's a chapter in the book Denialism By Michael Specter
In my next blog I'll discuss scientific fraud and ethics in other fields.
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