How should cases be analyzed?

Many of the skills necessary to analyze case studies can become tools
for responding to real world problems. Cases, like the real world, contain
uncertainties and ambiguities. Readers are encouraged to identify key
issues, make assumptions as needed, and articulate options for
resolution. In addition to the specific questions accompanying each
case, readers might consider the following questions:

1. Who are the affected parties (individuals, institutions, a field,

society) in this situation?
2. What interest(s) (material, financial, ethical, other) does each
party have in the situation? Which interests are in conflict?
3. Were the actions taken by each of the affected parties acceptable
(ethical, legal, moral, or common sense)? If not, are there
circumstances under which those actions would have been
acceptable? Who should impose what sanction(s)?
4. What other courses of action are open to each of the affected
parties? What is the likely outcome of each course of action?
5. For each party involved, what course of action would you take,
and why?
6. What actions could have been taken to avoid the conflict?

Case Study 1

You are a graduate student working on a project that involves

administering nerve toxins directly into the cerebrospinal fluid of rats by
using a special infuser connected to tubing that you have surgically
implanted into the base of each rat's skull. Administering different nerve
toxins to block specific effects of different types of drugs will help
determine how the drugs work. After surgery, the nerve toxin is given,
then a few days later the investigational drug is given to determine
whether it will have an effect. This protocol has been approved by the
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) and is being
funded by a grant from the Department of Defense. Over the past few
weeks, you have carefully implanted a catheter into the base of each
rat's skull, then infused the specified amount of nerve toxin. When you
go to the vivarium to bring the rats to the lab to administer the
investigational drugs, you find that a number of the rats are paralyzed
or dead. You did not expect this. The lab director is currently out of
town, so you go to the lab's senior graduate student, Tom, for advice.
Tom will be able to complete his dissertation writing when this
experiment is done and he has made it clear that he wants this
experiment to run without delay. You ask him whether you should stop
the experiment to determine why some of the rats are dead or
paralyzed. He responds that stopping the experiment now would waste
several weeks of work and delay completion of his dissertation. Stopping
now may mean having to start over later and could result in using even
more rats. He further explains that the IACUC might even prohibit
restarting the experiment, so the rats would have died for nothing
because the data would have to be obtained another way. He suggests
that the paralysis and death of some of the rats may be due to your
inadequate experience performing rat surgery or infusions, so further
practice by continuing this experiment may result in better outcomes for
the rest of the rats on which you perform surgery. What do you do now?
Do you continue performing surgery and infusions on the rats, knowing
that more rats may be harmed? Do you stop the experiment and inform
the IACUC, which risks earning the disfavor of Tom, with whom you
have to work? How would you explain each course of action to the
IACUC?

Case Study 2

New estimates suggest that there are 7.5 million girls and women 14 to
24 years old in the US who are infected with human papillomavirus
(HVP), a microbe that can lead to cases of cervical cancer in 2.2 percent
of women carrying one of the two strains that are most likely to cause
cervical cancer. This new finding, published in Journal of the American
Medical Association, is likely to encourage the use of a vaccine that has
been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for females 9-26
years of age. A company that produces this vaccine, has been said to be
talking to members of state legislatures to encourage them to require
vaccination of middle-school girls. This is now being considered by 18
states. For example, Texas's governor earlier issued an executive order
requiring the vaccine in school girls. Some parents have objected to
such mandates for the use of the HPV vaccination because the infection
is transmitted only through sexual contact and that can be avoided by
choice.

Please discuss the ethical issues that this raises.

Case Study 3

Two graduate students (Sven and Oren) in the same research group in a
political science department submit a paper to a conference. The paper
utilizes publicly available data in a new way to study the role of the
judiciary in regulating conflict in Nigeria. After seeing the paper on the
agenda of an upcoming conference, another student (Corey) in the
same research group in the same department contacts the PI (Dr.
Smith). Corey claims that his dissertation proposal was on the same
topic, also in Nigeria, and accuses Sven and Oren of plagiarism. He
argues that his proposal gives him the exclusive right within the group
to publish on the data, even though he has not had the chance to do
anything with it yet. Sven and Oren argue that the data are publicly
available, that they werent aware of the contents of Coreys proposal,
and that Corey would not have any recourse to even contact them if
they werent in the same research group. Dr. Smith concludes that
research group members have a responsibility to avail themselves of
each others dissertation proposals, and that Sven and Oren should
include Corey as a coauthor on the paper.