Ethical Dimensions of Research Studies: Sensitive Issues

Ethical Dimensions of Research Studies
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Ethical Dimensions of Research Studies
The case of Dan Markingson is an example of an issue with a lot of ethical issues, which needed to be dealt with. In the case, Dan Markingson was selected as a subject in the testing of a certain drug, Seroquel, which was an antipsychotic drug. The drug was tested in a study named CAFÉ. Dan Markingson was a mentally ill patient and was enrolled to be part of the study by a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota. The study would be conducted in such a way that three different kinds of drugs would be used on the patient. The drug to which he would respond positively would then be used as treatment. When the study began, the patient responded well to the first drug but got worse when given the second drug. This condition was made known to the researchers by the patient’s mother who was ignored. This was shortly followed by Dan Markingson’s suicide in the year 2004 (McClathy, 2005).
The main ethical issues, in this case, are centered on the fact that the patient was not in an acceptable state to make an informed decision when it came to signing the consent forms in taking part in the study. In such studies, which involve life risks and tests on new drugs, it is expected that the parties involved sign forms of consent, which lay out the procedure of the study and the conditions in which the study may stop. The parties in question should also possess a number of qualifications for them to be considered capable of consciously signing a consent form. First, they have to be the right age depending on the scope of the study and they also have to be in the right state of mind. Dan Markingson was definitely not in the right state of mind based on the fact that he w...