There are a few things you might need for an experiment involving beagles and the side effects of contraceptive pills. Animal research ethics aside, beagles might be a good start. Sadly, one researcher…
Social scientists have to get better at recognising and responding to ethical problems. Although economists, political scientists and psychologists have not been responsible for the same level of abuses…
International outrage at Facebook’s study on thousands of its users without their consent has raised questions about the ethics of research done by private companies. Facebook’s Emotional Manipulation…
The UK government recently concluded a six-week consultation on discarding a section of its law on animal experimentation in the interest of openness. Australia doesn’t have such restrictive laws but we’re…
Significant concerns are raised about the ethics of research carried out by Facebook after it revealed how it manipulated the news feed of thousands of users. In 2012 the social media giant conducted a…
Clinical research is going global. The number of trials conducted in countries like India and China is steadily growing and a significant proportion of marketing applications for new drugs in countries…
Almost two years ago, one of my oldest friends, Bradley L Garrett, boarded a plane at Heathrow airport. As it taxied on the runway, the British Transport Police arrived and dragged him off the plane. He…
The recent retraction of an academic claim in a leading journal about the incidence of side effects from cholesterol-lowering drugs has sparked anger in the medical community and potentially undermined…
Universities and researchers all over the world have a problem with Microsoft. It’s not just that the company forces expensive and dated software on customers. Using products like Microsoft’s email service…
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams was arrested by the Police Service of Northern Ireland for questioning over an abduction and murder committed in Belfast in 1972. He maintains his innocence and after four…
By definition, corruption is any type of deviation from an ideal. Ideals, as well as ideas, are core business for higher education. So when we fall short it matters. Reputation is becoming ever more important…
For researchers, social media is a veritable goldmine of opportunity. Every day, reams and reams of naturally occurring data are produced by users of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. At any given moment…
TESTING ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES - La Trobe University’s decision to accept funding from Swisse for a new centre to research alternative medicines has sparked controversy. This article considers the ethical…
Friends of Science in Medicine, an association that lobbies for evidence-based medicine, has called on La Trobe University to abandon planned research into Swisse supplements amid claims industry funding…
2013 was an auspicious year for medical research. A new vaccine for malaria was developed, there was a revolution in DNA analysis, and there was a major advance in human cloning when stem cells were produced…
Researchers and other similar species working within academia are ethical human beings. But actual standards are needed to ensure nobody is exposed to harm in our search for answers. Without these standards…
CLINICAL TRIALS – Human clinical trials are an important last hurdle in the development of new drugs and therapies. Today, The Conversation takes a closer look at this vital scientific endeavour with three…
Over the past few years, there has been a growing awareness that many experimentally established “facts” don’t seem to hold up to repeated investigation. This was highlighted in a 2010 article in the New…
Clinical trials of an experimental cancer drug being undertaken by the University of New South Wales were suspended this week, after questions about the accuracy of some preliminary results were made public…
If ideas are currency in a knowledge-driven industry such as scientific research, why is intellectual property (IP) so often taken without consent? The majority of ideas generated through scientific endeavour…