theEzone

So... is it ethical for researchers to ingest potentially ulcer-causing bacteria then?

Ahh.. so because the GRS aren't planning to publish the results of their graduate survey then presumably it's okay for them to send me numerous e-mails encouraging me to fill-in the survey, and three or four mailed versions, the last of which moaned about how less than "the required 51%" of we graduates had responded.  

When I read that I felt like I had let them down somehow.  There was no mention of my entitlement to not respond, how the data would be used, or the usual lengthy HREC statement that us postgrads have to add to our information sheets.  Quite the opposite.  I was made to feel like I was lazy.  Boy, would I like the lattitude to coerce divers to join my study, by hassling them seven times and telling them they need to participate for me to reach my target.

Interesting you mention the government too... that would be the Government who require everyone to fill-in a census every five years, and to take part in a survey every four years to find-out which political party should govern, and who fine us if we choose not to participate (vote), and cancel our driver's licenses if we can't afford the fines because we're unemployed mums or students or have suffered a turn of fortune.

I mentioned this GROSLEY unethical impost to my supervisor and he reassured me that, in reality, they don't actually chase people up.  The following week the West Australian published a list of 4000 driver's license numbers that had been suspended for non-payment of fines.  Their socieconomic status would be quite interesting to compare against the statewide distribution.

So, on the one hand I now have to hand over 1500 information letters and 1500 consent forms for signing, and another 1500 consent forms for the participants to keep, and I require them to read all this crap when all they really want to do is go for a dive (which they've paid $120 for, on their day off), and meanwhile the GRS and the Government don't worry about all that because it's not only unproductive and expensive, but unnecessary.

Your initial blog about UWA maintaining high ethical standards is a smokescreen for the real purpose of our cumbersome and onerous ethics process; and that is to protect the uni from frivolous liability claims.  

It's ass-covering at it's most bureaucratic, and bears no relation whatever to the welfare of the participants.  In fact, they are the poor buggers who are being forced to read two full pages of text for no reason, and the reduced participation rates that result from this mean that more and more people are asked to participate, so instead of just asking 800 divers to take part in a survey I need to ask 1500 to read a manifest.

If we could just say "I'm doing a uni study, I have a survey here, will you take part?" then we'd all enjoy far higher participation rates I'm sure, and the burden placed upon the  participants, some of whom do not read for recreation, would be far less.

I got 25% last year, 500 out of 2000 questionnaires.  That's probably less than the GRS got for their graduate survey, (not having to worry about all that HREC crap).

Peter

Yes, point taken, I'll reap the eventual rewards.

The motivation here is that I feel the pendulum of ethical concern has reached an apex, where the concern we are required to show everyone has reached the point where it's mildly overbearing.  The context I'm thinking about here is the harmless survey not, of course, experiments.  I'm well aware of the syphilus trials, the radioactive exposures in the US army, the ***, Laud's recording of surrupticious casual gay's car registration numbers, etc.  Not to mention the polio trials in Africa, which may or may not have led to AIDS. Ethics is of interest to me, which is why I replied to the opening statement.

I forget the exact findings of a study into "unethical student behaviour" but I seem to remember reading one study that found forty percent of us need to circumvent ethics to get the job done.  Perhaps we are "unethical", not that the system is at fault?

I had a call from some poor business honours student in Melbourne the other night, because I have my own business.  He started off by saying "I'm an Economics student at Melbourne.., I'm doing a survey... blah blah..." and I was busy, but I always participate in uni studies.  I know I alter the results by trying my best to be "a good subject" but that's a recruitment matter.

Anyway, the poor bugger was trying to read out a load of liability stuff about what the results would be used for and what the intent of the study was and I was really busy, expecting a class of dive students within 15 minutes and sorting out the exams and answer sheets and whatnot, ahead of their arrival.  I didn't have time for all this so I said "just get on with it".

That's the point, it's time for the pendulum to swing back, and for the ethics committees to realise that, in the REAL world, not everyone wants to know all there is to know about the study, and that maybe we should cut that out and just make it available to those who have nothing better to do than look it up, (by making it available to those who ask).

Honestly, divers have got enough to worry about, without also having to become "informed".  They need to remember Pete's five principles: "air, depth, time, buoyancy and stay with me".  They already get too much other stuff thrown at them, with liability releases, safety briefings, dive boat briefing, dive site briefing, etc.  The WA Code of Practice even requires me to tell all my customers about altitude diving during the dive brief, even though there isn't one  altitude sive site within WA?  We've gone too far - it's time to let the participants get on with their lives and to allow us researchers to make natural observations without bothering everyone.

That is my point: too often the ethics procedures are not intended to protect the participant; they are only in place to protect the institution behind the researcher.

Peter

Student number (1)85....

PS: Going back to your first comment, I enrolled at UWA in 1985.  We certainly had ethics then, regarding ingesting potentially hazardous materials.  One pair of UWA chemistry researchers were tasked with determining the potential absorbtion risk of arsnic through crayfish, and they were duly supplied with said contaminated crayfish.  So they ate them.  They measured the level of arsnic within the cooking water, and collected their urine for the week after, and they found that the compound in which the arsnic was held was not a compound readily absorbed by humans, and that we pass most of it through us.  Even so, instead of a million dollar prize apparently they got right b#llocking, (though I think one heads a depatment now).