Forum Posts by
Paul S. Appelbaum
- Do You Want the Police Snooping in Your DNA?
Posted on June 15, 2018
In late April, a suspect thought to be the Golden State Killer, a man who had eluded police for decades after committing a string of murders and rapes in Northern California and Orange County between 1976 and 1986, was identified on the basis of DNA evidence. Although we celebrate the dogged pursuit of a more… Read more
- Facebook’s Emotion Experiment: Implications for Research Ethics
Posted on July 21, 2014
Several aspects of a recently published experiment conducted by Facebook have received wide media attention, but the study also raises issues of significance for the ethical review of research more generally. In 2012, Facebook entered almost 700,000 users – without their knowledge – in a study of “massive-scale emotional contagion.” Researchers manipulated these individuals’ newsfeeds by decreasing… Read more
- Genetic Information Is Not Always Benign
Posted on January 24, 2014
Ethicists and others have been concerned that the disclosure of genetic information to patients might have negative consequences. The suspicion has been that negative effects, say, becoming depressed, are particularly likely when people are being informed about predispositions to diseases that are not currently preventable or easily treatable. However, the small number of studies to… Read more