
Recent events highlight an unpleasant scientific practice: ethics dumping - jkuria
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/02/02/recent-events-highlight-an-unpleasant-scientific-practice-ethics-dumping
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gumby
At one of my companies we were encouraged by our investors to do Phase I (and
some Phase II) clinical trials in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Angola, and
other such places.

Back then we did do _device_ studies in Germany because the regulations were
at the time quite lax (basically you just needed a German MD to decide it was
OK and to actually use the device). They've since tightened up the rules.

Interestingly, in the device case, people who were squeamish about doing
studies in poor countries with poor IRBs and such were perfectly happy to do
the device studies in Germany. Not sure what to make of that.

~~~
effie
Isn't it obvious? Germany is a respected western country, what goes there must
be OK, even if not according to other western country's laws. And surely there
are sanity checks at place there. Angola, on the other hand, is a poor
developing country in third world and that just signals that something
nefarious is going on. The participants probably felt doing stuff there would
have no such sanity checks and it would also taint their reputation.

~~~
gumby
> Isn't it obvious?

Well isn't it condescending to assume that Angola can't have reasonable safety
laws while Germany can?

Germany is hardly immune to corruption (as a German speaker I am well aware of
this) and that indeed was part of the reason why this loophole (placed there
at the behest of German medical device manufacturers) was ultimately removed
(thanks, EU!) while plenty of poor countries manage to have non-corrupt
governments and reasonable protections in place in particular against the
depredations of foreign companies.

As it happens Angola this week removed the laws barring same sex relations,
making them more liberal than bigger and so-called "more developed" countries
like Russia, China, et al.

~~~
peteretep
> Well isn't it condescending to assume that Angola can't have reasonable
> safety laws while Germany can?

No. Germany is rich and has a high HDI, both of which correlate with safety
laws that would be too expensive in poor countries.

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scarejunba
Mostly unrelated but Are there “dark journals”? Ones which will only establish
the knowledge validity of something and ignore the ethical standards?

~~~
woodruffw
Ignoring ethical standards _compromises_ the validity of any evidence and
resulting claims: if we know that the author is willing to ignore ethical
principles, we have no reason to believe that they aren't lying about their
data/results. The baby goes out with the bathwater.

There are plenty of journals (and websites) that will publish junk research,
but that's all it is -- junk.

~~~
lixtra
> Ignoring ethical standards compromises the validity of any evidence and
> resulting claims...

Unfortunately this logic is flawed. Ethical standards are a moving target not
the same as scientific standards (also a moving target). For the validity of
research I would be only interested in how far scientific standards are met.

To give a current example: a good chunk of scientists think that science
should be open access - an ethical standard. They still have no general doubt
in the validity of payed journals.

~~~
woodruffw
As 'daveFNbuck points out, believing in open access (as I do) _does_ entail an
amount of skepticism towards the current journal system -- I _do_ think that
the current incentive structure behind journal publishing threatens (if not
totally compromises) the results within.

Ethical standards are indeed a moving target, and it's the job of applied
ethics to determine that target at any given point. This is exactly how it
_should_ be -- it gives prior research ethical historicity that we can revisit
and evaluate to determine whether our priors are as sound as we think they
are.

~~~
lixtra
Open access was just one example.

While I'm all in all very happy with the current ethical standards, it's worth
to point out that in the past science was significantly advanced by
transgressing the ethical standards of the time (i.e. [1]) and it's easy to
imagine botched ethics that are diametrical to scientific principles.

I stand firm that not following some ethical standard does not invalidate
scientific results and consequently that OPs "dark journals" are very well
possible (obviously not desirable).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei)

~~~
woodruffw
> it's worth to point out that in the past science was significantly advanced
> by transgressing the ethical standards of the time

This misses the point: Gallileo's persecution was (and is) morally
impermissible, even if the powers at the time claimed otherwise.
"Transgressing the ethical standards of the time" isn't at all contentious,
because the ethical standards were clearly _wrong_.

By contrast, there's no clear sense in which our current ethical standards (in
the domain of scientific research) are actually _wrong_ \-- I might (and
happen to) disagree with their metaethical foundations, but their actual
practice is perfectly satisfactory: harm reduction, respect for fundamental
rights, consideration against exploitative forces, &c.

It's perfectly consistent (and correct) to say that following _some_ misguided
ethical standard will not invalidate scientific findings. What invalidates
those findings is failing to obey our current, _very good_ ethical standards.

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bookofjoe
John le Carré's 2001 novel, "The Constant Gardener," described this practice
in action nearly two decades ago.

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tapland
I was practicing at a medtech company in high school and the team really
wanted to conduct tests in China, since the best product testing would be to
shoot live pigs from a cannon into a concrete wall for treatment with the
device afterward.

To my knowledge it never happened, because adhering to local ethics
requirements would be better for seeking investments. But I also think the
company went under because of lacking real world results in the limited trials
that could be done.

~~~
_Schizotypy
I have to ask, what the hell was the treatment and what was it for exactly?

~~~
tapland
It was a device for use in trauma patients (car crashes being the most common
use case). So that's what they wanted to test, and it is an unsafe procedure
for trials, requiring sedation and risking the health of the patient, but
possibly increasing positive outcomes in real cases.

I don't feel comfortable outing the company.

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scarejunba
Of course this has been happening for a while. When I was a child, I recall
reading this in the newspaper when it was revealed that Johns Hopkins dodged
normal process by testing drugs in India.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121689/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121689/)

Interesting that you could simply test on people in India without establishing
safety on animals first.

~~~
Pharmakon
The history of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment along with others shows that
you don’t need to leave home to disregard ethical practices. At home or
abroad, the rule is that abusive people and companies will target groups
without a voice. It’s the same reason people can be tortured or killed by
police and jailers, and the public only pays lip service to reform. The only
thing that really changes is who has no voice or power, and then becomes
victims.

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lsiebert
Someone should write a scifi story about alien ethics dumping.

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nmz787
anyone care to pastebin a copy of the text?

~~~
neonate
[http://archive.is/nKaVz](http://archive.is/nKaVz)

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empath75
This is the dark side of globalism and it’s not just testing, it’s every
aspect of capitalism where it touches countries in the developing world.
Everything from the food you buy to the clothes you wear is the result of
horrific exploitation.

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aaron695
"Ethics dumping" is a weasel word and I sincerely doubt is actually happening
to any extent, if at all.

The examples in the article were stopped/got in trouble due to ethics or were
not dumps.

But I wish it was common, the millions who die each year due to overly
convoluted delays in testing and high prices it creates is a travesty.

People creating fake issues like "Ethics dumping" are the real villains in
this world.

