Risk and radical uncertainty in HIV research
How much risk can we expose our research subjects to? There is a special challenge answering this question when the evidence on which we base our assessments of risk is fragmentary, conflicting or sparse. Such evidence does not support precise assignments of risk (eg, there is a 24.8% chance that th...
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| Format: | Article |
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BMJ Publishing Group
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115174 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7659-7454 |
| _version_ | 1811084700200992768 |
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| author | Hare, Caspar |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Hare, Caspar |
| author_sort | Hare, Caspar |
| collection | MIT |
| description | How much risk can we expose our research subjects to? There is a special challenge answering this question when the evidence on which we base our assessments of risk is fragmentary, conflicting or sparse. Such evidence does not support precise assignments of risk (eg, there is a 24.8% chance that this patient will develop AIDS in the next year if she participates in my study). At best it supports imprecise assignments of risk (eg, there is between a 5% and 35% chance that this patient will develop AIDS in the next year if she participates in my study). Here I discuss three approaches to evaluating risk when probability assignments are imprecise-an optimistic approach, a moderate approach and a pessimistic approach. I offer a practical reason to favour the pessimistic approach. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:56:13Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/115174 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:56:13Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | BMJ Publishing Group |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1151742022-10-01T12:01:20Z Risk and radical uncertainty in HIV research Hare, Caspar Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Hare, Caspar How much risk can we expose our research subjects to? There is a special challenge answering this question when the evidence on which we base our assessments of risk is fragmentary, conflicting or sparse. Such evidence does not support precise assignments of risk (eg, there is a 24.8% chance that this patient will develop AIDS in the next year if she participates in my study). At best it supports imprecise assignments of risk (eg, there is between a 5% and 35% chance that this patient will develop AIDS in the next year if she participates in my study). Here I discuss three approaches to evaluating risk when probability assignments are imprecise-an optimistic approach, a moderate approach and a pessimistic approach. I offer a practical reason to favour the pessimistic approach. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (U.S.) (Grant 1 R01 AI114617-01A1) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (U.S.) (Grant 1 R56 AI114617-01) 2018-05-02T17:17:03Z 2018-05-02T17:17:03Z 2016-09 2016-08 2018-04-26T13:36:06Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0306-6800 1473-4257 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115174 Hare, Caspar. “Risk and Radical Uncertainty in HIV Research.” Journal of Medical Ethics 43, 2 (September 2016): 87–89 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7659-7454 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/MEDETHICS-2015-103117 Journal of Medical Ethics Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ application/pdf BMJ Publishing Group BMJ |
| spellingShingle | Hare, Caspar Risk and radical uncertainty in HIV research |
| title | Risk and radical uncertainty in HIV research |
| title_full | Risk and radical uncertainty in HIV research |
| title_fullStr | Risk and radical uncertainty in HIV research |
| title_full_unstemmed | Risk and radical uncertainty in HIV research |
| title_short | Risk and radical uncertainty in HIV research |
| title_sort | risk and radical uncertainty in hiv research |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115174 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7659-7454 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT harecaspar riskandradicaluncertaintyinhivresearch |