Comment by hn8788
4 years ago
It could have been done similar to how typosquatting research was done for ruby and python packages. The owners of the package repositories were contacted, and the researchers waited for approval before starting. I wasn't a fan of that experiment either for other reasons, but hiding it from everyone isn't the only option. Also, "you wouldn't have allowed me to experiment on you if I'd asked first" is a pretty disgusting attitude to have.
"you wouldn't have allowed me to experiment on you if I'd asked first"
I'm shocked the researchers thought this wasn't textbook a violation of research ethics - we talk about the effects of the Tuskegee Study on the perception of the greater scientific community today.
This is a smaller transgression that hasn't resulted in deaths, but when it's not difficult to have researched ethically AND we now spend the time to educate on the importance of ethics, it's perhaps more frustrating.