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Dan Markingson Case

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The ethics of research can be complicated in any case, but become especially hard to work through regarding the inclusion of people without mental competency to make their own decisions. This is particularly true in the case of mental illness because the loss of competency isn’t always as easy to define for a mentally ill person. As a result of this, researchers must be cautious when considering how to go about testing drugs on the mentally ill. Any drug trial, even one with possible therapeutic benefits, is potentially harmful to its participants. Further consideration is needed to determine if the possible harms of placing a potentially non-consenting participant outweigh the benefits of the trial. To start out, it is important to differentiate between practice and research, especially in this discussion of therapeutic research trials. Practice is meant to treat an individual in order to improve upon their quality of life. The practice of medicine generally yields good outcomes and is not inherently risky, with some exceptions. However, research on the other hand includes subjects or participants to learn something about people or a topic as a whole. While it seems that the differences are clear, there are many times when the lines between the two may blur. One of the ways that the differences are more ambiguous is in the case of …show more content…

To examine the effects of mental illness and competency on ethics in research, the case of Dan Markingson can be used. Many things need to be considered before enrollment in research pursuits. For one thing, the participant’s ability to make that decision (their competency) must be assessed. If they are found to be competent, they must be given the same rights as other participants. This may come with some adaptations, however. For example, the participant may need to have informed consent given to them in a different

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