Researchers should be allowed to conduct their experiments and studies freely. As such, they will be able to fully concentrate on their study and come up with up with brilliant research findings. However, the government should enforce regulations and policies to prevent the abuse of research subjects. This will ensure that research strives to promote positive benefits for the larger community sponsoring it. It should ensure that research involving living things is conducted in a manner that is sensitive to the inherent worth of all living things may be it be humans, animals, or vegetation and the respect and consideration that they are due.
Introduction
It stands irrational to propose that each and every scientific venture should be severely followed in a manner that the interference of the government in research and scientific studies becomes part of the government prevention to the research. If this is allowed to happen, researches could never advance. However, research practices must be regulated in situations where human, animals or vegetation are involved and are threatened with harm. Some critics are of the opinion that the government involvement in research will be more harmful than advantageous. However, as illustrated in case three, “the kind of researchers who would recreate prison situations to see how nasty humans could be to total strangers” stands unethical and participates in researches that should not be condoned at all.
Government regulation on ethical research
I strongly advocate for government regulation in research basing my evidence on cases one and five. I find The Guatemala Syphilis Experiment and the experiment involving aboriginal children appalling, horrendous, and traumatizing. It is more or less unbelievable that unethical researchers would conduct such experiments. The researchers may argue that their research and scientific experiments were carried out with the sole purpose of trying to identify and treat disease and undernourishment. The fact that they intentionally infected, allowed and withheld vitamin supplements for medication which they argue that were very much needed for clear observations stands unethical and against humanity. Prolonging and inducing human affliction without approval by the subject under study is inhuman and also sickening. Some may base their arguments on the fact that their participants were prostitutes, prisoners, and mentally disabled patients as in case one or the aboriginal children who faced discrimination during the study time as in case five. They may argue that the subjects were not enviable human beings and as such were not contemptible. However, the fact that they were human beings stands rigid and as such, there should be a set of laws and policies put to protect the wellbeing and safety of such individuals used as test subjects in research studies.
The Institutional Review Boards (U.S) and the Review of Ethics Boards in Canada should come up with effective policies and measures ensuring that such laws are followed to the latter without implying negatively research. Several programs have been formulated to assist scientific studies in a manner that they will involve negligible or no human aid at all to overcome problems related to research. An example is the Expenditure Review Process, which enables people to keep away from a tiresome IRB evaluation enabling them to have their researches accepted quicker and more competently if and only if they involve minimal human risks. This is a brilliant idea as it allows researchers to carry out their research and experiments with fewer difficulties. This makes researchers to be more vulnerable to stern regulations and makes them be cautious when conducting their researches. Measures allowing researchers to gauge the risks involved in their experiments ahead of time are recommendable. This will enable them to halt their proceedings in time instead of finding out at the end of their arrangements when they will have already done a lot.
With regards to the information in all the five case studies, the Institutional Review Boards and/or the Review Ethics Board should come up with a set of common rules in relation to research. Test subjects should not be forced to participate in the study- involvement should be voluntary. The researchers experiment should be ethical obliging the researchers to ensure that the test subjects’ rights, health, and safety are not debatable and should not be violated during the research.
