The Ethics of Industry Experimentation Using Employees: The Case of Taste-Testing Pesticide-Treated Tobacco

Patricia A McDaniel, Gina Solomon and Ruth E Malone

University of California at San Francisco, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education from Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, UC San Francisco

Abstract: In the United States, companies that use their own funds to test consumer products on their employees are subject to few regulations. Using previously undisclosed tobacco industry documents, we reviewed the history of that industry’s efforts to create internal guidelines on the conditions to be met before employee taste testers could evaluate cigarettes made from tobacco treated with experimental pesticides. This history highlights two potential ethical issues raised by unregulated industrial research: conflict of interest and lack of informed consent. To ensure compliance with accepted ethical standards, an independent federal office should be established to oversee industrial research involving humans exposed to experimental or increased quantities of ingested, inhaled, or absorbed chemical agents.

Keywords: tobacco industry; industrial research; human subjects; ethical guidelines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-01-01
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