Unethical work must be filtered out or flagged (Nature)

[rvallee]

Researchers need guidance on how to handle published work whose ethics have been questioned, argue Graeme D. Ruxton and Tom Mulder.

How about paying attention to the people negatively impacted by it? Unfortunately there is no process for that and the victims of such unethical research are often vilified and attacked openly, hence the current problem.

Finally, over the past few decades, awareness of the importance of research ethics has grown. Many studies conducted in respected universities in the twentieth century would never be approved under current legislation — such as the experiments performed in the 1960s by the US social psychologist Stanley Milgram, in which people were tricked into believing that they were giving others potentially lethal electric shocks.

Lots more work ahead. Blatantly unethical research is growing in some areas and thousands of testimonies are systematically dismissed, guaranteeing the growth of more unethical research.

A Lancet article that claimed to link the MMR vaccination to autism attracted controversy as soon as it was published. It was shown to be fatally flawed, but wasn’t retracted until 12 years after publication

And the very same person is currently repeating the exact same mistake and laying out the exact same invalid defense of "just activists". No lessons learned here.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02378-x

 

[Sly Saint]

"awareness of the importance of research ethics has grown"

hmm yes, you need a REC number that shows your study is service evaluation and therefore exempt from ethical scrutiny......... just need to find one you used before.

 

[rvallee]

"awareness of the importance of research ethics has grown"

hmm yes, you need a REC number that shows your study is service evaluation and therefore exempt from ethical scrutiny......... just need to find one you used before.

It's like how some conflicts of interest are handled. "Are you aware of those CoIs?" "Yes we are" "Are you going to do anything?" "No, but we are aware of them".

The thing about being aware of the problem being the first step in solving it only applies if people actually want to solve it. Meanwhile some people are elevated way beyond their skill level thanks to the blind spots in the system and know they can't survive otherwise. That's a strong incentive not to change anything.