I am really appreciating the thread on ethics when it stays focused on the
principles involved.  If we can't discuss ethics and the way we practice, we
have a much bigger problem than I thought.  I know we can do so without
attacking one another personally.

This fall I have been fortunate enough to take courses in research ethics,
and statistics in epidemiology.  Both very useful!  In the ethics course we
were told that the commonest form of scientific dishonesty at the moment is
fraudulent authorship, which includes the type of fraud Valerie mentions -
where a company 'buys' a researcher to put her/his name on a study
commissioned and possibly carried out by the company with a financial
interest in the outcome, because it would never get published if it were
known that the company was behind it.

I am not so worried about the influence of industry-financed research when
there is disclosure of financing and/or authorship.  I am worried about the
ghostwritten articles, because how will I really know who is behind them, or
even which ones they are?  This is why we need to be attentive at all times
when reading research articles.  We need to ask ourselves every time we read
an article: who will benefit from these conclusions being accepted?  Who
will suffer?  There has been at least one article published in JHL showing
that a hand-operated personal pump is just as good as a hospital grade
electric pump.  It was funded (and perhaps carried out) by the manufacturer
of the hand-operated pump.  I would have more confidence in the findings if
it were someone completely independent doing the comparisons between pumps.

Another point to remember is that what gets researched is not accidental.
There is always a choice made about what to fund, and that choice is most
definitely fraught with ethical dilemmas.  That brings me to my next
thought: a nagging question that will not leave me alone is whether the
companies putting efforts into researching breast pump technology practice
what they preach - that they want women to be able to breastfeed, as
distinguished from breastmilk feed.  This to me would mean having exemplary
maternity leave programs with pay for their own employees, for starters, and
paid breastfeeding breaks when said employees rejoin them.  If they really
wanted to convince me of the sincerity of their intentions, they would also
be supporting legislation to guarantee every employee who gives birth, the
right to choose to be home, off work, with the child for a minimum of 3
months after birth, preferably much more.

These are things I never would have thought of, had I not moved from my home
in the US to a country with a completely different spin on public health and
on individual vs. collective responsibility.  Fish can't see the water, as
the saying goes.

Rachel Myr, Kristiansand, Norway
really too tired to be posting so long-windedly after a WONDERFUL home birth
last night, a few hours' sleep, and a full day at work at the hospital
today.  Good thing this doesn't happen every week!  OTOH maybe I could quit
my day job if it did?

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