There have been examples of researchers violating ethical standards to enhance their own careers. However Kelly P. Bannister, an ethnobotanist at the University of Victoria went our of her way to protect the indigenous group she researched on their use of plants for food and medicine.
she withheld extracts of the plants from her graduate supervisor, who
wanted to sell them to a pharmaceutical company. Then, when she
finished her dissertation, she had it sealed for five years. She didn't
want companies to profit from her published work, perhaps at the
expense — or at least at the displeasure — of the Indian groups that
had collaborated with her.
Ms. Bannister, 41, an adjunct professor of environmental studies,
directs a research-and-policy center dedicated to environmental
projects at Victoria. She is in demand for publishing on the ethics of
research involving aboriginal peoples, and she sits on several
university, national, and international committees working to reform
research policies.
Her studies focus on making academic research, writ large, more
equitable to the indigenous groups it often studies. She concentrates
on intellectual property — the stories, songs, and traditions of
aboriginal peoples, which have in the past often been exploited or
published without the agreement of those who shared them with the
researchers.
Read the entire article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Sept. 1, 2006 issue): Digging into the Roots of Research Ethics: How a Canadian ethnobotanist became a champion of research that advances the lot of indigenous peoples
Posted by Jon Lutz
