Ethics in science?

Acknowledgements

This free course was written by Claire Kotecki and adapted by Nicolette Habgood.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.
The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:
214008 Figure 1: Courtesy of the Institute of Naval Medicine Historic Collections
214009 Figure 2: Popperfoto / Getty Images
Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.
Don't miss out
If reading this text has inspired you to learn more, you may be interested in joining the millions of people who discover our free learning resources and qualifications by visiting The Open University – www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses.

Solutions

Activity 1 Researching clinical trials

Part

Answer

• 
  People in the treatment group are given the treatment being assessed.
  
• 
  People in the control group are given an existing standard treatment, or a placebo if no proven standard treatment exists.
  

While the treatments are different in the two groups, researchers try to keep as many of the other conditions the same as possible. For example, both groups should have people of a similar age, with a similar proportion of men and women, who are in similar overall health.
In most trials, a computer will be used to randomly decide to which group each patient will be allocated.
Many trials are set up so that nobody knows who has been allocated to receive which treatment, i.e. the trials are ‘blind’ and this helps to reduce the effects of bias when comparing the outcomes of the treatments.
Back to - Part

Part

Answer

A government agency called the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) needs to review and authorise them. The MHRA inspects sites where trials take place to make sure they are conducted in line with good clinical practice.
The Health Research Authority (HRA) works to protect and promote the interests of patients and the public in health research. It is responsible for research ethics committees across the UK.
All medical research involving people in the UK, whether in the NHS or the private sector, first has to be approved by an independent research ethics committee. The committee protects the rights and interests of the people who will be in the trial.
Back to - Part