Review of The Ethical Dimensions of the Biological Sciences. Edited by Ruth Ellen Bulger, Elizabeth Heitman, and Stanley Joel Reiser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, 294 pp. [This review originally appeared in Medical Humanities Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall 1984):65-68. Reprinted with permission.]Since 1989, proposals for National Research Service Awards (training grants for graduate students) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration (ADAMHA) have been required to include a plan for training in the responsible conduct of science. This requirement has left many perfectly responsible, ethically upright scientists at a loss, for they had no particular background or training in teaching research ethics. A wide number of responses to the mandate have arisen, and there is currently a great ferment among graduate faculty members in the sciences and among the administrators overseeing them. Books appropriate for teaching research ethics are few and far between (though steadily increasing in numbers) and every credible addition is heartily welcomed.
The Ethical Dimensions of the Biological Sciences grew out of a course established in 1985 at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston by "a bench scientist now working in health sciences policy, an ethicist in medicine and the professions, and a physician/historian of science" (p. xi).
According to the preface,
The book attempts to do two things. First, it presents in one place a variety of readings organized according to several fundamental topics of ethics in science. Second, the introductory essays and discussion questions in each section provide a focus on aspects that we believe warrant particular consideration. [p. x]
There is no doubt that this is a very useful volume. It is divided into ten sections, each one with a short introduction by the editors, two to five previously published articles, and three discussion questions, along with a short list of recommended supplemental readings. Section topics range from "The Conceptual and Social Foundations of Science" and "The Roots of Honor and Integrity in Science" to "The Scientist in Society: Interactions, Expectations, and Obligations." Other topics covered include self deception in research; the ethics of authorship and publication; research with human subjects; research on animals; and conflicts of interest.
Among the important documents reproduced here are the Nuremberg Code (p. 145), a 1966 statement on clinical investigations using human subjects by the U.S. Public Health Service (p. 147), the Declaration of Helsinki concerning biomedical research on human subjects (p. 159), "Guidelines for Investigators in Scientific Research" issued by the Harvard University Faculty of Medicine in 1988 (p. 201), the 1990 "Guidelines for the Conduct of Research at the National Institutes of Health" (p. 204), "Patenting Life: Summary, Policy Issues, and Options for Congressional Action" by the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, and the "Summary Statement of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules" (263).
There are also several essays providing excellent background information, including Stanley J. Reiser's historical overview, "The Ethics Movement in the Biological Sciences: A New Voyage of Discovery." Reiser divides the ethics movement into four phases. Phase I begins in 1945 with the end of World War II and the writing of the Nuremberg Code. It ends in 1966 with the NIH's establishment of the IRB system. As Reiser puts it, "While the first part of this ethics movement focused on the danger of the scientists' work to particular individuals, the second part emphasized its threat to society at large" (p. 3). Thus Phase II saw increasing concern over dangers to the public at large posed by science, including dangers posed by atomic and genetic research. Phase III "began in 1975 with the publication of Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation" and was characterized by increased public attention to the "procedures within the biological sciences used to generate and transmit knowledge" (p. 6), including concern over the use of animals in research, the increased risk of conflicts of interest as some aspects of the biological sciences developed potential as big business, a number of widely publicized misconduct cases, and the establishment in 1989 of the Office of Scientific Integrity at NIH (now the Office of Research Integrity). The fourth, and current, phase, beginning in 1990, "promises to enhance ethical self-awareness about research issues among scientists as education in ethics enters their institutions of learning" (p. 10). This volume, and others like it, are the products of phase four.
Like Reiser's essay, several other good overviews in this volume provide both historical background on the topic and ample food for thought. These include Arthur Caplan's "Beastly Conduct: Ethical Issues in Animal Experimentation;" James L. Mills's "Reporting Provocative Results: Can We Publish ÔHot' Papers Without Getting Burned?"; and Rebecca Dresser's "Wanted: Single, White Male for Medical Research" (on the historical exclusion of women and members of minority groups from medical studies, and the implications of such exclusion).
The essay I found most interesting was by Julius H. Comroe, Jr., and Robert D. Dripps, entitled "Scientific Basis for the Support of Biomedical Science." The authors observe that much of the support for "basic" (as opposed to "applied") research in biomedical science is merely anecdotal; their goal was to demonstrate scientifically that significant medical advances are dependent on basic research (research undertaken without a specific application in view). They examined 4000 studies on cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, and the article provides detailed data on their findings in the development of electrocardiography. They identified 267 key articles Ñ articles that "had an important effect on the direction of subsequent research and development," along with three other criteria (p. 31). Of these articles, 101 were "not clinically oriented" (e.g., were basic research) and 166 were clinically oriented Ñ that is, 37.8% of the key articles in the development of electrocardiography were the result of basic research (p. 34). This provides a powerful argument for the practical importance of basic research and, by implication, a powerful argument against anyone who would claim on utilitarian grounds that all research should aim for a specific application.
There are also some distinct weaknesses to the volume. For a book intended to be used in the classroom, it pays distressingly little attention to the use of case studies in teaching research ethics, an extremely popular and effective teaching method. Only four short paragraphs address the use of case discussions, these added as an appendix to Reiser's essay; no mention of sources of cases to discuss is included.
There are a few irritating instances of editorial omissions. The editors apparently retained the original mode of citation for each essay, which makes for a bewildering array of citation styles. There is nothing particularly wrong with this (though it is a bit disorienting), except when the editors get sloppy. The essay "Methods, Definitions, and Basic Assumptions," by the Panel on Scientific Responsibility and the Conduct of Research, National Academy of Sciences, uses endnotes; but the endnotes do not provide the full citation for works cited, only the author and date, and the editors neglected to include the bibliography from this work.
At times the editors were insensitive to the shift in context that takes place when an article is republished in a book. The worst case is in Edward J. Huth's "Irresponsible Authorship and Wasteful Publication." Huth asks, "[W]hat might be done about abuses of authorship and wastes in publication? Dr. Angell proposes in her paper (6) what might be the best remedy; let me suggest some others" (p. 136). Angell's paper appeared immediately after Huth's essay in the issue of Annals of Internal Medicine in which they were originally published; but it is not to be seen in the present volume. There was no need for Huth to paraphrase Angell's "best remedy" in the original context, but the editors of this volume should have done so.
But these are minor weaknesses. My major reservation about this book is a skepticism as to its effectiveness as a textbook. The authors have apparently used these readings for a number of years with success, and there is certainly much to be learned from the essays. The only aid to teaching, besides the short description of the case discussion, is the three discussion questions at the end of each section; these questions are short, almost cursory, and they do not always touch on all of the most interesting and vexing problems raised. Indeed, I get the impression that the section on the case discussion and the discussion questions were added as an afterthought, perhaps on the recommendation of a reviewer or the publisher.
Most of the articles are quite abstract, dealing either with policy/regulatory issues or sweeping ethical concerns, like Thomas H. Murray's "Ethical Issues in Human Genome Research." This all certainly has its place, but there is not much here to engage students in their day-to-day practices as budding scientists. I believe that any course on the responsible conduct of science should include a great deal of concrete discussion of what goes on in a lab Ñ the kind of discussion best facilitated by case studies. The risk of a more abstract approach, such as represented by this volume, is that students will see ethical issues as distant and theoretical and unrelated to the problems they already face every day.
I am not arguing against the use of The Ethical Dimensions of the Biological Sciences; I do mean to suggest that it would probably be most effective supplemented with other materials. This is certainly a book that teachers of research ethics will find valuable as a reference work and that every research university should have in its library.
[The following announcement was posted on the SCIFRAUD listserver.]
Since the first edition of On Being a Scientist was published in 1988, 200,000 copies have been distributed to graduate and undergraduate science students to help acquaint them with the ethical obligations of scientists. This booklet has now been updated to include a series of case examples to facilitate group discussions.
The new version also incorporates important developments in science ethics of the past six years and includes updated examples and material from the 1992 NAS volume Responsible Science. It preserves discussions of the social and historical context of science, the allocation of credit for discovery, the scientist's role in society, the role of publication, and other aspects of scientific and engineering research.
Written in a conversational style, this 40-page booklet may be of particular interest to students entering scientific research, their instructors and mentors. In order to foster broader understanding of responsible conduct, the NAS is making low-cost copies available for a limited time, to be used in classrooms and group discussions, and to be distributed to appropriate students. A fuller description of the booklet is available via Internet from dstine@nas.edu.
The document can be ordered directly from the National Academy Press (NAP) at the following costs: 1 copy @ $5.00; 2-9 copies @ $4 each; 10+ copies @ $2.50 each. You can reach NAP at 1-800-624-6242.
Last updated: 22 January 1996
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