Ethical or not?

If we are more transparent and give them more of an education (e.g. pathogens in water, boil water) on what we are doing, then yes.

Step 1: Determine the facts in the situation

• I am an academic researcher expecting several publications out of the research study in Lesotho
• There are clear signs that Lesotho water has disease causing pathogens 
• Their methods for storing water are different and uncommon compared to previous knowledge of the research team 
• Driving the community members up the lake in exchange for information is considered good enough payment – do not expect actual pay
• We need to rely heavily on indigenous knowledge to move towards a clear problem statement or solution 
• The research team and I are experts in pathogen/ disease research (health medicine and society)
• Research funded by an outside source, university/lab/government that expects a clear outcome
• We are hoping that the chemical additives will make the water safer to drink, but there will be costs involved that we are unsure they can afford 
• assume all IRB’s have been obtained 
• Assume we would get assistance from the local community
• There may be implications of not being able to complete the study (funding, brand, relationships may be affected) – to avoid this, ahead of time, do research on stakeholders
• Ethical Issue: Whether or not it is ethical to use the local to advance our research without proper compensation and if our work will lead to more dramatic issues in the future that the locals will be unaware of.

Step 2 and 3: Stakeholders and Motivations

• Local water company
  • Get out product/earn revenue
  • Help those patients involved
• University/lab/government (Funding agency)
  • Treat spread of disease
  • Reputation of gaining academic knowledge on pathogen
  • Funding agency will have their name attached to the possible solution
  • More advertising – want to be a world leader in the field – want to build up their brand
  • More partners

• Research team
  • Help patients involved
  • Further their career and potentially making money 
  • Earn more money to continue doing research and get continuous funding
• Local people
  • Create healthier living environment 
  • Have safer water to drink
  • Lessen the risk of contracting a disease-causing pathogen
  • Excitement to learn and socialize – but their vulnerability may result in wanting you to hear what you want to hear – they do not want to come off as ignorant – they may reinforce your ideas because they think you’re smart and want to agree. On the other hand, some may be weary to trust an outsider so make sure you talk to the right people 
  • Negotiating entry
  • Cleaner water may lead to more tourism/more business connections 
• Tertiary Stakeholder Hospital/ health care workers (third party to the solution in its direct implications)
  • Treat people with the illness
  • Make sure hospital isn’t always at capacity – prevent future cases
  • can devote their resources to something else 
• Academic Journal
  • Getting new and credible information that will better their reputation and add to their plethora of knowledge
• Yourself (Researcher)
  • Help local communities involved
  • (Hopefully) Actual interest/passion for social impact 
  • Understand the lifecycle and characteristics of the pathogen and the chemical
  • Boost credentials
  • Maintain your job and further career

Alternative Solutions

• Send prepaid sampling supplies and provide incentives to the people to gather water samples/take surveys seeing where people get water from
  • Pros:
    • Save travelling expenses 
  • Cons:
    • Samples could be taken incorrectly
  • Principle:  It’s better to pay the locals to do the work for the research team and help send the samples to us then debating what locals should be paid or compensated that would’ve helped us if we were collecting samples 
• To find water sources on our own without any local assistance 
  • Pros:
    • Removes ethical dilemma regarding the community
    • Allows for more room to not worry about how the research can affect the community
  • Cons:
    • could be gathering water where they do not drink from and it could take much longer than if you asked the community
    • the water samples might not be sufficient and the pathogen could not be in the ones that are found
  • Principle: This will allow us to not worry about the locals in the community and focus on the task at hand that we were given.  There would be no need for compensation and the implications of our research in the future can be unrelated to the locals since they didn’t contribute to the research.
• Have community health workers travel with you during your field work so that there is a trusted person with you to help prevent push back
  • Pros:
    • would lessen the chance of push back 
    • easily define a person to give compensation too
    • easily conduct research in the short time period allotted
  • cons:
    • would have to spend more money on bringing that health care worker along 
    • would have to be able to identify that health worker and get in contact with them
    • also have to make sure they have the time and patience to help with the research being conducted
    • they could ask for more compensation than the research team has to offer them, still undefined about how much to compensate the person
  • Principle: There is a clearly defined person that can be compensated for helping the research team find the water sources

Step 5: Seek additional assistance, as appropriate – engineering codes of ethics, previous cases, peers, reliance on personal experience, inner reflection

• During our class discussion there were many good points that were brought up according to how to compensate people and what truly matters in terms of the ethical dilemma in the study.  Khanjan helped clarify so ethical principles to consider and what was truly important in the case study.  As a researcher it is important to focus on the ethical dilemmas that are correlated to the act of doing the research, not necessarily what others might use the research for in the future.

Step 6: Select the best course of action – that which satisfies the highest core ethical values. Explain reasoning and justify. Discuss your stance vis-a-vis other approaches discussed in the class.

• I think that selecting the community health worker to help lead the team to the different water sources in the area is the most ethical option.
  • For me and my research team it helps reduce the confusion about who to compensate for helping with our research and will give us a trusted person in the community to help us.
  • For the university/organization that is funding the research, they will benefit from knowing that we have a reliable person helping direct what water to test and makes the results of the research that much better.  However, the university/organization that is funding the project might have to pay extra money if the community health worker needs to be compensated for more than what was anticipated to be spending
  • For the community, they will benefit from having their water sources properly tested and getting information on what is going on in the water.  However, since the community health worker is the one being compensated there won’t be any other benefits to the overall community.
  • Hospitals will benefit because they will have less people hopefully getting sick once it is determined if the pathogen is in the water that the locals drink.  Hospitals also benefit from having the community health worker on the forefront of the research so they can report back to let the hospitals know what kinds of tests are being done.
• Other solutions aren’t as beneficial because they won’t get the overall best results for the study.  If there is no assistance from the locals then the samples could be not as great as they should be and reduce the quality of research.  This looks bad on the university funding the project , the academic journal and the research teams credibility.  If the locals are put in charge of collecting samples and shipping them to the research team, there is also the risk of losing credibility and won’t leave a good reputation if the samples are taken wrong and the research later is proven to be inaccurate.

Step 7: (If applicable) What are the implications of your solution on the venture. Explain the impact of your proposed solution on the venture’s technology, economic, social and environmental aspects.

• The implications of conducting this research can greatly influence the locals living situation and cause many benefits/ issues
  • Technology: The research is meant to better understand the pathogen living in the area and the research can lead to new technologies that can clean the water.  This would be helpful not only to clean the water where the study was done, but could also lead to other water cleaning methods for other areas if there is a profound discovery.  The water cleaning technology could then be implemented in Lesotho and allow for the people to have clean drinking water and clean water for other uses.
  • Economic:  If a new water cleaning technology is discovered and implemented in Lesotho it will create an economic impact on whatever company decides to sell this technology to the country,  The university that funded the original research will most likely also make money off this technology.  However, the locals will suffer economically if the government has to pay for the water to be cleaned and can take money away from the people or make it more expensive to get water.
  • Social: The social implications are what if the locals don’t want chemicals in their drinking water once a new technology is created?  Maybe they don’t want any outside help or anything to change the way they live.  Socially for the research team it is extremely beneficial because their reputation will go up and make it easier to accumulate more grants and funding for more projects.  It also gives the university that funded the project and the journal that published the papers a better reputation.
  • Environmentally:  The environment could greatly suffer from a discovery of new water cleaning technology.  The water in Lesotho could have a lot of wildlife in it and the ecosystem could be severely damaged with the addition of added chemicals.  With the development of these chemicals there could also be environmental externalities like byproducts of the chemicals that would need to be disposed of and enter the overall environment.