Medical Ethics in An Online World
Increasingly, medical researchers are researching activities in online environments such as discussion boards and bulletin boards, and there is concern that the requirements of informed consent and privacy are not as stringently applied as they should be, although some guidelines do exist.
One issue that has arisen, however, is the disclosure of information. While researchers wish to quote from the original source in order to argue a point, this can have repercussions. The quotations and other information about the site can be used to identify the site, and researchers have reported cases where members of the site, bloggers and others have used this information as 'clues' in a game in an attempt to identify the site. Some researchers have employed various methods of "heavy disguise," including discussing a different condition from that under study, or even setting up bogus sites (called 'Maryut sites') to ensure that the researched site is not discovered.
Read more about this topic: Medical Ethics
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