Tutorial 1: Human Research Ethics

Case study 1

Dr. Sandai is an Environmental Health Specialist who studies food hygiene and security. His
student, Aisyah is conducting a final year project assessing the presence of pathogens in
ready-to-eat (RTE) food. One of her participants is a famous celebrity who owns a hipster
café. She found that one of the RTE food sold at the café was contaminated with Salmonella.
She announced this on social media and the news went viral.

Discussion questions:

a) Give your opinion on Aisyah’s action and its consequences.

b) If you are Dr. Sandai, explain what will you do differently to prevent such situation.
c) If you are Aisyah, what should you have done differently?

Case Study 2

Dr. Syukri was a rising scientist in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and was eligible for
a promotion. He had a PhD student named Julia who was co-supervised by Professor Wang.
Professor Wang was Dr. Syukri’s mentor and is a prominent scientist in the field. After 4 years
of PhD research, Julia finally completed her research and published her research with Dr.
Syukri as corresponding author and Professor Wang as co-author. Julia graduated and found
an academic position elsewhere.

A few months after Julia’s paper was published, news began to surface that the data in Julia’s
paper was suspicious. The university administrators were alerted about this matter and began
to investigate the issue thoroughly. At the end of the investigation, the university administrators
identified several issues:

1. Julia was unable to provide the reference letter for ethics approval from the Ethical
Board.
2. Three images in Julia’s paper were duplicated and manipulated to generate three
additional images for another experiment in the same paper.
3. Julia was unable to produce the raw data to support a graph in her paper.
4. Two tables in Julia’s paper looked almost identical to other tables found in Dr. Syukri’s
publication from 3 years ago.
5. Professor Wang admitted to the university administrators that he had never attended
any research update meetings with Julia and he did not provide any scientific
contribution towards Julia’s research.
6. Dr. Syukri also admitted that he and Julia met once every two months to discuss Julia’s
research progress. During these meetings, Dr. Syukri rarely spent more than 10
minutes discussing Julia’s data.

Discussion questions:

a) Describe the research misconduct found in the case above.

b) What do you think the factors that contributed towards the actions of Julia, Dr. Syukri
and Professor Wang?
c) What could Dr. Syukri and Professor Wang have done to prevent Julia’s action from
taking place?
d) Explain the consequences of this situation.
Case Study 3

Prof. Chua is the head of the Department of Nursing. Her daughter happens to be her PhD
student. Prof. Chua appointed Dr. Amri, a rising star in the department, to become th examiner
of her daughter’s thesis. He examined the thesis and passed it. On the other hand, Dr. Ram
was appointed as the external examiner of the thesis. He found out that the findings in the
thesis was in contrast with the research he was working on. Dr. Ram then failed the thesis
without proper evaluation.

Discussion questions:

a) Describe the conflict of interest (COI) in this case.

b) How would a COI affect Dr. Amri’s integrity? What are the consequences of Dr. Amri’s
actions?
c) If you are Dr. Amri, how would you handle the situation?
d) What do you think of about Dr. Ram’s actions? What are the consequences of his
actions?
e) If you are Dr. Ram, what should you have done instead?
f) If you are Prof. Chua, what would you have done differently to mitigate the negative
consequences that could have occurred in this case?

Case Study 4

There is a disease outbreak in an Orang Asli village deep in the jungles of Pahang. Dr. Cindy
has been tasked to travel with his postgraduate student, Mr. Koh to the village and perform
some research to understand the trend and transmission pattern of a particular disease spread
by mosquitoes. Dr. Cindy and Mr. Koh will spend prolonged time collecting samples from the
environment, people and animals. Dr. Cindy will also travel with her collaborator, Dr. Ahmad,
an anthropologist who has an extensive experience working with the villagers. Dr. Ahmad
plans to bring his own postgraduate student, Mr. Ravi. As a team, they will interview the
villagers as part of their investigation.

Role-playing activity:

a) Dr. Ibrahim, the director of research management from Dr. Cindy’s university, has
convened a meeting with Dr. Cindy, Dr. Ahmad and their students to discuss the issues
pertaining to their research (such as safety issues), who will review the research plan
before approving the investigation. If you are the researchers team, by playing the role
of Dr. Cindy, Dr. Ahmad, Mr. Koh or Mr. Ravi, explain to Dr. Ibrahim your strategies of
identifying potential hazards, associated risk and minimizing or mitigating the risk in
conducting the research.

b) An ethical board meeting has been convened. By playing the role as the university’s
ethical committee, prepare a set of questions to be addressed to each of the
researchers’ team (Dr. Cindy, Dr. Ahmad, Mr. Koh and Mr. Ravi) with regards to the
ethical issues. By the end of the meeting, decide whether they have design and
planned the study sufficiently to ensure the safety and security of their research as well
as adherence to research ethics.