Textbook: Baird: chapter 8 IOM Study (Augments Learning Activity Below) Created by Denise Cope, M.A. (adapted from a NYT article from August 13, 2006); If you would like to read the original article that Denise used go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/us/13inmates.html?ex=1313121600&en=a79630025121346d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss Learning Activities Paper: A Results Analysis of Drug Testing on Prisoners. Case Study: Testing on Prison Inmates Task at hand You are a member of the Ethics Committee for the federal prison system. Your job is to evaluate an expansion of a current government program whereby potentially risky pharmaceutical products would be tested on prison inmates. Currently, prisoners are able to choose to participate in a similar program in which they have the opportunity to be paid $300 to test out a variety of pharmaceuticals that pose a “minimal” risk to prisoners. This expanded program would allow inmates to have the opportunity to test out drugs that might pose a greater health risk if it could be determined that the drug test could be of health benefit to the prisoner. Prisoners would be paid the same amount. You must use the Results Lens (including the Baird-designed “utils” for calculations) and Bernard Lonergan’s Model to determine the best course of action: Should you approve for prisoners to have the opportunity to test riskier pharmaceutical products for compensation? General considerations ##Some of the current prisoners are illiterate or have varying degrees of mental illness and may not fully understand the legal document. ##Opponents have questioned whether prisoners can truly make uncoerced decisions given the environment that they live in. ##The biomedical industry is facing a shortage of testing subjects; on occasion, they approve drugs that have proven harmful to the general public (like Vioxx). This expanded program would give the industry a “captive” pool of potential testing subjects. Historical considerations There is a history of abuse of power with earlier governmental programs involving prisoners and the poor. From 1930–1970, the government had conducted a secret program (the Tuskegee study) with several hundred mostly illiterate African American males with syphilis in rural Alabama. The men were left untreated, even after a cure was discovered, so that researchers could study the disease. In another case in the early 1970s, about 90% of all pharmaceutical products were tested on prison inmates, but it sharply diminished in 1974 when it was discovered that some prisoners were exposed to radioactive, hallucinogenic, and carcinogenic chemicals. The connection between these kinds of study and social and economic class can be both subtle and obvious: African Americans make up about half of all prison inmates when they are only 13% of the U.S. population; the majority of U.S. inmates grew up in poverty and are un- or undereducated. Context: Working from the concept of an ethical act being a goal or result which will create the most happiness for the most people, the Results Lens invites each ethical actor to determine what goals are worthy of pursuit (Baird, p. 104). Description: Write a 10-page discussion paper describing the core elements of the Results Lens framework as it relates to Case Study: Testing on Prison Inmates. The paper should address the lens’ philosophical lineage (including John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism), the general characteristics of the lens, a calculation of utils to determine if the study should go forward, and an application of Lonergan’s Model to the case study. You should also address whether you would implement other strategies which would strengthen your own mastery of the Results Lens.