data-rich networked information technologies are unique in that they represent people’s lives and activities, bridge multiple dimensions of a person’s life, and are often collected, aggregated, exchanged, and mined without them knowing. We call this data “pervasive data,” and the increased scale, scope, speed, and depth of pervasive data available to researchers require that we confront the ethical frameworks that guide such research activities. Read more
Last month brought the 40th anniversary of the publishing of the Belmont Report, and along with that milestone came a reflection on how its values, conclusions, and imperatives have changed in the intervening years. A celebration of its durability has been accompanied by a necessary reckoning with the ways that a 40-year-old document may be ill-equipped to process the ethical issues brought about by technological, cultural, and political changes. Here, we’ve gathered a range of resources that look back on 40 years of the Belmont Report. Read more
At our 2019 IACUC Conference in March, PRIM&R was pleased to present our first Pillars of PRIM&R Outstanding Poster Award. A team from the Mayo Clinic—Cherylann Gieseke, CVT, CPIA; Naomi M. Gades, DVM, MS, MRCVS, CPIA, CMAR, DACLAM; Hirohito Kita, MD—was chosen for this award for their project “Development and Utilization of a Multi-Species Database to Analyze the Incidence, Duration, and Reason for Single Animal Housing.” Read more
Among the speakers at IACUC19, one in particular, Leland S. Shapiro, PhD, touched me in a unique way. A brain tumor survivor and fellow martial artist (I have a brown belt in Tae Kwon Do), Dr. Shapiro related his story in an unusually funny and endearing fashion. He shared his full experience, from his initial symptoms, to his struggle to find a doctor. His frustration and moments of almost giving up, his perseverance and fight—his ultimate triumph. As he explained, he is a living legacy of animal-based research. And I think this is something we can all relate to and find similar stories of in our own circles: family members, friends, neighbors saved by medical interventions made possible by animal research. Read more
Approximately 80% of the US population has a social media account. Social media can be a powerful research tool for recruiting subjects and for conducting research. As regulatory professionals tasked with protecting research subjects, it’s important to understand the unique risks and benefits of social media use for research.Luckily, at PRIM&R’s 2018 Advancing Ethical Research Conference, there was a session devoted solely to the complex issues related to research on social media. Read more
New laws on adoption of research animals have been ratified by nearly a dozen US States, with more pending. In large part, the measures require due consideration by research programs of adoption of dogs and cats once research is complete. Do these new laws do what they claim to do? Do they “save animals” from euthanasia, as some proponents are claiming? Or do they not really add much to the practices already used by many animal research programs? Read more
