Abstract
Stuart Rennie, on his Global Bioethics blog, points out an unfortunate new practice with regard to research deemed to be unethical (either because it lacks ethical approval, deviates from that approval or would contravene common ethical practices such as gaining consent of participants), with seemingly important results. This is that medical journals are now sometimes publishing the results while criticizing the conduct of the research in editorials (Rennie, 2012). He gives the example of a recent tuberculosis study published in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease comparing two courses of treatment, where he says the researchers:
did not ask participants for informed consent, arguing that: (1) neither of the treatment arms were likely to cause harm (2) the participants were be unlikely to be capable of making a rational choice to decide to participate (3) asking them to participate might lead to selection bias. (Aung et al., 2012; Rennie, 2012)
The non-publication of such research has historically performed an important role in discouraging carrying out research of this ilk, since if it cannot be published then why do it?
The justification offered for publishing the article is a common one, given that the harms have already been done; not using and publicizing the results of the research simply compounds those harms since it negates any benefits that those harms might have had. This justification and subsequent debate have risen frequently in medical ethics, in particular with regard to the use of the results of nazi medical research, but in many other areas as well, such as the use of illegal elephant tusks confiscated by the UK border agency in research (Berger, 1990; Brassington, 2012).
It is important to note that part of this argument depends on the incentive structures that are set up – one would hardly think that poachers are likely to hunt more elephants because the confiscated tusks are used in research rather than destroyed. However, if ostensibly unethical research is published then this does create incentives for researchers to sidestep ethical norms, or at least reduces the disincentive to avoid carrying out unethical research. Does the publication of additional editorials criticizing the ethics of the research create a significant disincentive? I suspect not really, since many people will read the article electronically without even seeing the editorials.
Given that the ethical critique itself is unlikely to discourage authors, I think we should be sceptical about the claim that this mitigates the ethical quandary the journal finds itself in, and if the journal wants to hold themselves to the highest ethical standards, they are better to reject the article outright rather than publishing it with a critique.