Progress in clinical and biological research
-
The paper locates the problem of research ethics in a "value-free" science that has made researchers value-blind, insufficiently able to foresee possible negative consequences of what they do, but very able to design strategies to agree to structures that protect them. The intellectual style of a given research community enters as a key variable, and most intellectual styles are seen as ways of making scientific findings less threatening by focusing on data with little interpretation or speculation with little documentation. The famous Wilkes/Gleditsch case in Norway is cited as an example of research that offered both data (obtained from open sources) and interpretation, and was met with disapproval and sentence. ⋯ Universities may soon offer neither security nor academic freedom nor relevance. Researchers may find the academic commune more suitable, with economic independence. And they may argue for a redirection of research to satisfy basic needs--material and nonmaterial--for everybody.
-
Prog. Clin. Biol. Res. · Jan 1983
Historical ArticleThe evolution of the ethics of informed consent.
-
Prog. Clin. Biol. Res. · Jan 1983
La Crosse encephalitis: occurrence of disease and control in a suburban area.
Fifteen (6.4%) of 233 residents sampled in State Road Coulee (SRC) during 1972-73 had antibodies neutralizing La Crosse (LAC) virus, 9 (3.9%) trivittatus (TVT), 12 (5.2%) Jamestown Canyon (JC) and 2 (0.9%) Bunyamwera serogroup virus. Six of seven youths who had antibodies to LAC virus had been ill: three were serologically confirmed as cases of LAC encephalitis and three had possibly related illnesses. The other reported no illness. ⋯ No cases have been found in SRC since 1977. Following expansion to a county-wide control program, LAC encephalitis in La Crosse County has been reduced from seven and eight cases during 1978 and 1979 to only one and two during 1980 and 1981. No cases have been found in La Crosse County so far during 1982.