我们有伦理问题有关的研究,所以我们要求提供更多信息的作者,特别是:伦理委员会批准了该研究的详细资料;他们是否已经从病人和健康志愿者知情同意书;审判是否已经注册它开始前;如何病人和对照者;分别给予什么样的信息,患者和控制他们同意参加之前;其中,研究发生;什么安全/监控被用于替代的任何不利影响的情况下;获得批准什么(例如,来自全国的药品监管机构)之前,这种药物注射到首次人类;什么其他研究已经对这种新药进行?笔者回应我们的电子邮件,要求撤回稿件,但没有回答任何我们的问题。 We responded that we had serious ethical concerns and therefore would not be withdrawing the manuscript at this time. We informed the author that we would be investigating the potential ethical issues and asked again for answers to our questions. We have heard nothing from the author since.
响应于这些查询,收到了以下回复。“我们已经在调查问卷的第一部分中设置了一个求职信,其中包括以下项目:调查问卷没有任何名称和个人信息。如前所述,在组织内的学习计划期间,强烈关注和对道德问题的承诺很重要达到组织目标。考虑到道德和IC的重要性,这项研究的最终目标是探讨它们之间的关系,最后对组织绩效的影响。这项研究的结果将通过考虑隐私问题来发布。它is important to note that the organization’s management has a strong commitment to the above noted subjects. Besides a non-valuable reward, the most important incentive for employees’ participation is that they are in this believed that their organization should be pioneer in comparison with their competitors. Due to being knowledge-based organization, employees have actively participated in such studies, and also they have perceived their positive outcome well, accordingly involving in such studies was accepted as a common subject in that organization".
我们审查并发布了一个随机对照试验,其中儿童接触父母二手烟(SHS)是持续(通常的实践控制)或父母被要求避免在孩子周围吸烟(干预组)。该研究包括超过400名儿童平均9岁。父母提供书面知情同意书。该研究得到了研究人员机构的伦理委员会的批准。通过自我报告的调查问卷和访谈收集在学校环境中的数据。儿童根据SHS暴露量进行分类,并收集了关于几种症状的基线数据。有兴趣症状和暴露于SHS的儿童随机分为两组。第1组中的家庭吸烟成员被要求在孩子的存在下,在6个月的时间内吸烟,而第2组的人被要求不改变吸烟习惯。在学习注册之前,父母被告知他们不需要作为参与的一部分戒烟,相反,他们将被要求减少儿童的SHS曝光。6个月后,数据再次收集数据,以评估仍在显示感兴趣症状的两组儿童的比例。 Following this trial, all parents and children were asked to participate in a 5 month school project related to the risks of SHS exposure. The project included weekly lessons about the risk of SHS, attended by children with their parents to educate children about SHS risks and help parents to either reduce or cease smoking in their children’s presence.
在审查过程中,处理编辑和审阅者都没有提出关于该研究的道德的问题。However, following publication, we received a letter questioning the study’s ethics on the basis that the known risks of SHS exposure outweighed any benefit to be gained by learning about whether SHS was a risk factor for the studied symptom and that the study procedures violated the Helsinki Declaration. The letter’s authors argued that the study’s advising of smoking parents in the control group to not change smoking habits could have unnecessarily exposed their children to additional SHS if parents who would have otherwise quit or reduced their children’s exposure did not do so because of the study. The authors of the letter claimed that they could not think of a single research question that would justify exposing children to SHS.