Ethics Archives

Voluntary Consent in Medical Research: The Murky Situation

What makes it ethical to perform experiments on people? How does a doctor get permission to take blood or tissue samples from a patient? What type of voluntary consent or informed consent is needed? Voluntary consent is when a person willingly participates in a procedure or experiment. Informed consent in research requires the person to know what they’re agreeing to as opposed to just agreeing to do something. Read more about the issue of voluntary consent for Henrietta Lacks and informed consent in research using her cells.

Henrietta Lacks: Ethics Questions Raised by Use of HeLa

What ethics issues were raised by The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks? Did researchers have Henrietta Lacks’ consent to use her tissue? How have standards changed? In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, ethics are an important discussion. Henrietta Lacks’ informed consent was not considered in using her tissue for HeLa. Read about consent in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, ethics questions raised, and current informed consent requirements.

Richard Wesley TeLinde: Why Did He Take Henrietta’s Cells?

Who was the gynecologist that excised tissue from Henrietta Lacks? Why did Richard Wesley TeLinde want her cells? How did TeLinde use the cells for research? Richard Wesley TeLinde was a well-known gynecologist and the superior of the doctor treating Henrietta Lacks at Johns Hopkins. Dr. TeLinde was interested in the treatment and progression of carcinoma in situ, meaning noninvasive carcinoma. Learn about how Richard Wesley TeLinde’s research interests changed the course of science.

Victor McKusick: Did He Invade the Lacks Family’s Privacy?

Who was the geneticist that may have revealed Henrietta’s real name? How did Victor McKusick attempt to dupe the Lacks family? Did McKusick and his postdoctoral fellow Susan Hsu do anything wrong? Victor McKusick is the geneticist at Johns Hopkins that studied the genes of Henrietta Lacks’ family. He and Susan Hsu were working on the issue of HeLa contamination. Find out what Victor McKusick and Susan Hsu did, and whether it was legal.

Witness Tampering Examples: Osage Murder Trials

Why the Beautiful Forevers' Abdul Is in Legal Limbo

What’s witness tampering? How was this tactic used during the Osage murder trials? Witness tampering is an attempt to prevent or influence a witness’s testimony. Often, the goal is to keep the witness from telling the truth, therefore influencing the outcome of the case. Keep reading to learn how witness tampering factored in the Osage murder trials.

Guardianship Laws: How the Osage Were “Legally” Robbed

How did guardianship laws allow people to commit theft? What role did they play in the Osage Reign of Terror? Guardianship laws declared some adult Osage Tribe members incompetent so that “guardians” could control their money. This arrangement ultimately played a role in an unthinkable tragedy. Read more to learn about guardianship laws and the Osage murders.

News Bias: How Little Cues Sway Voters and Elections

What is a good media bias example? How do nonverbal cues reveal news bias on television? We’ll cover one news bias example in which newscasters’ nonverbal signals revealed how they really felt about the candidates during the 1984 presidential campaign. We’ll also look at how these unconscious facial expressions swayed viewer votes.

Household Finance Corporation: Billions of Profit for Fraud

What happened to Household Finance Corporation? Why did it have to pay a $484 million fine, and how did the scandal serve as a harbinger of the coming greed and deception of the subprime loan market? Household Finance Corporation was a leading corporation providing mortgage loans. It was merged with HSBC in 2004 after a loan fraud scandal. Learn how the Household Finance Corporation scandal affected customers and what the attitudes of the corporation’s leader and those tasked with protecting consumers say about the causes of the 2008 financial crisis.

Food and Politics: Don’t Trust U.S. Dietary Guidelines

“Big Food” is an influential industry–their positions as key economic players in the U.S. gives them influence in the government. But how closely tied are food and politics? And how does it affect American citizens? We’ll look at extended examples of ways the food industry influences policy, and we’ll cover how this affects you.

Food Industry Corruption: 4 Ways It Affects You

Food costs consume a huge percentage of our budget. Because we’re dependent on food, we’re also fairly dependent on those who market and sell it. Food industries take advantage of this. By making claims about the proven nutritional value of their products, food and drug companies and advocacy groups blur the line between science and marketing. How does food industry corruption affect you? Organizations like the National Dairy Council, the American Meat Institute, and Florida Citrus Processors Association each have annual budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars. With this money comes power over research, medical education, and government