“Even though the Declaration of Helsinki is the responsibility of the World Medical Association, the document should be considered the property of all humanity.” (Human and Fluss, 2001)
This quote reflects exactly how important the Declaration of Helsinki was (and is), not only does it affect those involved in the medical world, it affects all of humanity. The Declaration of Helsinki was established in 1964 by the World Medical Association and contains a list of ethical principles and rules that should be considered and adhered to by those conducting research on humans. I think that it is also important to mention that the Declaration, itself, is not a law to be enforced by different countries but it has influenced legislation in many countries. The principles form the very basis of the British Psychological Society (BPS) and American Psychological Association (APA) ethical guidelines, which need to be followed by psychologists when conducting research.
Prior to the Declaration of Helsinki (1964), it would appear that researchers were pretty much able to get away with anything. We all know of the famous Milgram (1963) study, in which participants were given the role of teacher and were told to administer an electric shock to the learner every time they answered incorrectly. A shocking 65% of participants actually administered the maximum 450volt shock to the learner. The learner, unknown to the participants, was a confederate of the researcher and did not actually any electric shock. During this study the participant’s experienced a great deal of stress as they genuinely believed that they were causing another human being harm, they were being deceived by the researcher and did not give informed consent. Although this study may have caused long-lasting psychological distress in some (or all) of the participants, it may not be as shocking as some of the other examples that I have managed to find.
Many of you have probably heard of the Thalidomide incident, which caused severe deformities in babies born to women who had taken the drug in the late 1950s. The drug was given to pregnant women to help them sleep and control feelings of nausea. It turns out that Thalidomide was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), of which the pregnant women were not aware therefore they were unable to give informed consent. The women did consent to take the drug but they believed it to be approved and safe. After all when we walk into a doctor’s surgery with, let’s say, tonsillitis we trust that if it is a bacterial infection our doctor will prescribe an approved form of antibiotics, not some random drug that hasn’t even been properly tested. Although in some cases patient’s, such as those with cancer, are offered a place on a drug trial programme where the drug has not been tested but those patients are informed of possible side-effects and so on.
Another example, which I had not heard of until now, is the Tuskegee Syphilis study which ran in the US between 1932 and 1972. This study was conducted on around 600 African-American men who were diagnosed as having syphilis, the researchers wanted to learn more about the disease. In the 1950s penicillin was found to be the cure but the researchers did not inform their participants’ of this. If they had been informed it is very likely that they would have taken the treatment and the researchers would not be able to carry on with their study. The researchers caused harm to their participants by allowing the disease to continue, their participant’s best interests were not at the forefront of their minds and informed consent was not sought.
These previous incidents (or studies) can be viewed as abuses of power, which helped to bring about the Helsinki Declaration so that hopefully this type of research will not be repeated. To summarise it was recommend that informed consent is given by participants, all research should be approved by an independent committee before commencing, researchers must be properly trained and the benefits should not outweigh the risks. (More information can be found by visiting http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/.)
Many of you reading this are probably starting to recognise these recommendations as they are virtually the 5 basic ethical guidelines that all psychologists should try follow, according to the BPS (and APA). Informed consent should be collected from all participants before the study, they should not be deceived by the researcher, the researcher has the responsibility to protect participants from any harm, the researcher should be fully competent and the ends should justify the means (the BPS Guidelines can be found by visiting http://www.bps.org.uk/what-we-do/ethics-standards/ethics-standards). Also, all research proposals are approved by an ethics board that take on board all of the issues mentioned and determine whether research should go ahead. The declaration has definitely helped to improve the treatment of participants in psychological and non-psychological experiments.