On his Times Topics page online, Pogue posted a statement of ethics, saying manufacturers have no involvement in his manuals and that from now on, if he is writing a book about a product he is reviewing, he will disclose it to readers.
Journalistic freebies for the win (see my statement of ethics: here).
A succinct statement of ethics by Smith is found in his 13th Article of Faith: We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things.
The implementation and any necessary revisions of the Statement of Ethics and Governance are the responsibility of the Sc2.0 Project Executive Committee.
As mentioned earlier, the Sc2.0 Statement of Ethics and Governance is an integral component of the agreement that each partner signs on joining the Sc2.0 Project.
In this commentary, we survey the current ethics and regulatory landscape of synthetic biology and present the Sc2.0 Statement of Ethics and Governance to which all members of the project adhere.
Among 300 cluster randomised trials published between 2000 to 2008 in 150 different journals, 26% lacked a statement of ethics approval and 31% failed to report informed consent, but we found evidence of improvement over time.
While project-level accountability does not suffice as the means to regulate all of synthetic biology, we believe that the Sc2.0 Statement of Ethics and Governance holds value as a model for regulation in the field.
Another review of all 1133 clinical research articles published between 2005 and 2006 in four major clinical journals found that 3.2% lacked a statement of ethics approval and 5.5% lacked a statement of informed consent 18; over the corresponding time period in our review, the proportions were 26%and24%4%.
But our studies suggest that if, for instance, you want to encourage whistle-blowing, you might emphasize fairness in mission statements, codes of ethics, honor codes or even ad campaigns.
