PHI 2396 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Clinical Trial

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 2396
• Professor: Andrew Sneddon

Document Summary

Official ethical rules have been placed ever since physicians misused the privilege to be a doctor to perform unethical experiments on innocent people. These rules stated that the subjects must give informed voluntary consent to participate in such human experiments. Secondly the study must be designed in such a manner that would minimize the risk to the test subjects and generally be more beneficial than harmful. It also states that subjects must be selected fairly to avoid exploitation of a certain population or the exclusion of one. The subjects privacy must also be protected and preserved. Lastly, before a research study can begin, it must be reviewed and approved by an independent board. General moral rules are applied in all cases and are unanimously agreed upon. Control groups are often used in experiments and have raised ethical concerns as many scientists believe that controlled trials are merely a means to an end to scientific knowledge.