Research Evils Exposed!

Living up to a mistake one has made in a research campaign experiment is one of the most trying actions on the human ego. Luckily, with a good publicist at hand, cover-ups can be handled smoothly thus allowing the gossip to die down. But when matters are affecting a global spectrum, sometimes it's hard to forgive and forget official's actions. 

Think back to 1940. An era seeming harmless hiding behind the "American Dream" when in reality  research studies were conducted that looked at new ways to prevent STDS by direct inoculation of soldiers, prisoners, and mental hospital patients! In this article, Fox News noted that Hilary Clinton recently made a published apology regarding giving STDS to Guatemalan mental patients without any consent or knowledge by the Guatemalan subjects. What was originally going to be just a "fact sheet" provided by a practitioner, turns into a research study comparable to the Tuskgee Syphilis Study, where the participants inside the study thought that they were being treated when really they received placebos or were directly given the disease. 

In order to fix the unethical Guatemalan experiment, the United States decided to start a new campaign that will conjure, "an international group of experts, to review and report on the most effective methods to ensure that all human medical research conducted around the globe today meets rigorous ethical standards," said Health and Human Services inside the article.  It was then further concluded by HHS that "the training of researchers will ensure such abuses do not occur". 

Yet, one should note that not all research for medical reasons is unethical in the pr campaign world. According to Charlie Nelien's blog, unobtrusive research, pertains to methods of gathering data by means of obtaining information without the subject actually being observed. Interning for a biomedical marketing company, Nelien learned the ins and outs for recording medical information of targeted people. Examples included how "doctors search the patient's insurance providers to document past medical symptoms"  and have historically been using these unobtrusive techniques for decades. 


Still, many argue that unobtrusive research has its unethical aspects as well. Take the example that one's information from his or her insurance provider may contain information that the person wants to keep private. He or she has no idea that this information is being used and for what purpose. I believe this just as extremely unethical as infecting Guatemalan's with STDs. Each of these groups of test subjects has the right to know when they are being tested and why for their information represents a part of them and thus requires notification of usage of one's own "property of thoughts". 

Other commentaries on the unethical side of obtrusive research methods described in Whitney's blog which describes how there are "computer monitors that use an optical sensor using an infrared light bouncing off of the cornea to capture eyes movements" as the readers eyes look at the Web page. Readers have no idea that a camera is attached to the computer and is watching their eyes every move. Even though such "candid" methods are used to rule out bias, these are still seen as violation of privacy in my mind. Additionally, such methods might not be Illegal, but rain supreme in disregard for ethical responsibilities. Candid cameras, injecting test subjects, and looking at private insurance files as a whole make the research aspect of PR look deceitfully dirty. Hopefully in the future with the progression of the Internet and social media, one will use focus on the capabilities to be anonymous chat rooms when conducting research.  For I believe that anonymity in testing can retain ethical standards responsibly than obtrusive research means can as expressed in the examples above.