Angie David UNIV 391 Reflection B February 10, 2012 Research ethics covers a wide spectrum of issues from

human and animal experimentation to scientific misconduct. Human research must be responsible and cause no harm towards the subjects. Many laws, such as the Nuremberg Code, Declaration of Helsinki, and Belmont Report, were put into place to make sure research protocols followed a safe and ethical manner for the ethical treatment of human subjects. Animals, in much the same way, must be cared for and treated in a humane manner. Animals are vital in research because they can be used to extrapolate results to benefit humans without adversely affecting humans with the same treatment. In regards to this, governments have also created laws for ethical animal treatment. Being aware of the ethics of research is important for scientists in conducting and presenting research and its findings. Research ethics prevents mistreatment of subjects and fraudulent data claims and plagiarism. Ethics must be followed in order to have trustworthy results. If researchers fail to follow ethical rules, the integrity of the project and the researchers reputation is at stake. As a result of academic scandals and unethical human and animal treatment, related organizations and affected populations are less likely to use and trust those scientists. In the oyster restoration project, research only involves animal usage. It would have been subject to animal ethic laws; however, oysters are invertebrates and are not covered by the Animal Welfare Act. Despite this, there are scientific misconduct issues that are related to this research project. One issue relates to fabrication of data. Our oyster restoration project is heavily empirical. We obtain data from the oysters themselves, the

sediment they excrete waste into, the microorganisms that fix the oyster waste, and even the gases that are emitted. It is easy to accidentally spill a sediment sample and fabricate the weight that one should expect. We also collect data using computer programs, such as MS Excel. It is easy to go into a spreadsheet, view the data and change it to match the hypothesis. This kind of fabrication is especially dangerous because the developed conclusion will be based on fraudulent data and the issue will still be unresolved. We can say that oyster restoration actually does clean up the eutrophic waters in Jamaica Bay, NYC and have public health officials spend money and time to create mandates and policies to use oyster restoration as a water treatment mechanism. However, it will all be in vain if in fact, oyster restoration is not as effective as hoped. It is also easy to plagiarize seeing as there are many oyster restoration projects going on all across America. Eutrophic waters are considerably different all along the East Coast. A project that worked for the Chesapeake Bay may not work for Jamaica Bay. Taking other works and presenting it as our own is unacceptable in the scientific community. Not only will our proposals for publications be immediately rejected, but our work will be frowned upon by the public. The protection of Jamaica Bay affects many populations, both animal and human. Jamaica Bay is filled with rich food resources from the fish that live there to the wildlife that inhabits the Bay. To protect this Bay, Mayor Bloomberg and other officials have created the Jamaica Bay Watershed Protection Plan. This plan, created by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, was made in order to better protect and improve water quality. In addition to this, The New York City Department of Environmental Protection announced methods to reduce the amount of nitrogen put into the Bay. . Public health research can also utilize the same theory behind improving water

quality, and help communities struggling with clean water and its related diseases. These organizations depend on research like ours in order to create and implement programs to preserve Jamaica Bay. If our research in oyster restoration proved to help improve water quality, then the NYC Department of Environmental Protection and related organizations would be able to use oysters as a cost effective way of cleaning the water and preserving the wildlife. If we were to falsify our research and present inaccurate findings, these organizations would either be wasting their time and money on a project that is not significant or doesnt contribute valuable information to restoration efforts. Future organizations or populations that rely on our research can then feel secure in our research if we present everything in a trustworthy and reliable manner. Another population that relies upon our research includes ecotourism. Water quality affects the aesthetics of ecotourism. Oyster restoration should improve water quality by making the water clear and clean. Ecotourism should benefit because water quality impacts fishing, boating, and ecotourism. Once again, if our results are presented as flawless or show a conclusion that is false, organizations that rely on us waste efforts in acting on our conclusions. Therefore, we must take great care into implementing research ethics into all parts of the research process, from beginning to end. In drafting the protocols, we must make sure we take care of the ethics involved in human or animal experimentation. In carrying out the experiment, we must be aware of including everything that goes wrong, into our results so that the conclusion is accurate. The data must not be forced into verifying the hypothesis for easiness sake. Plagiarism, especially when the research has been replicated before, must also be avoided in order to keep the reputation and integrity of our own research high. In the last stage, the results, good or bad, must be presented fairly to

all so that future researchers will know how to improve our protocol and expound our project. Even if one small part is ethically unsound, the whole project can be called into question.