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In Canada, all institutions that conduct publicly funded, animal-based research are expected to comply with the standards of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC). The CCAC promotes the use of animal alternatives, and uses the "3Rs" principles of Replacement, Reduction , and Refinement as a guiding ethical framework. To ensure these standards are strictly enforced, internal ethics committees at each institution are tasked with creating "Animal Use Protocol" (AUP) forms to be filled out by researchers and evaluated by the committees.In this paper, we assess AUP forms from Canada's top research universities to identify the extent to which they conform to, or advance, the 3Rs framework. Our results show various deficiencies that call into question the quality of information elicited by these forms. To remedy this, we recommend that the CCAC assume responsibility for creating a standardized 3Rs section to be used on all AUP forms. In addition, proposal forms and experimental results for all research at CCAC-certified institutions should be digitized and uploaded into a national database. We argue that this would offer higher quality information for researchers at the experimental design stage, while strengthening the CCAC's mandate to be accountable to the Canadian public.

Around the world, the recent introduction of assisted death laws has meant that undertaking medical assistance in dying (MAID) is now an option for some persons wishing to end their life. Some of these people donate their bodies to medical science, and by doing so have created a new route from which donor programs can now receive bodies. Such donations have also illuminated a myriad of novel ethical questions. This article considers the emotive and controversial topic of MAID in relation to body donation, describing the experiences of McMaster University, Canada, where several MAID body donors have been received by the anatomical donor program. It provides background on the development and implementation of MAID in Canada, and describes the experience of staff and students at McMaster to MAID donations. It also explores the relevance of MAID to body donation programs, and discusses several of the ethical challenges facing body donation programs who may encounter MAID body donors. These include the appropriateness of accepting MAID donors, issues with informed consent, the effect of personal engagement with MAID donors, information sharing around MAID donations, governance issues, and negative historical parallels between MAID and euthanasia. Suggestions on how to manage MAID body donation focus on how issues affecting institutions, faculty, and students may be approached utilizing appropriate transparency and communication, some of which may facilitate student professional development around the topic of MAID. It is also suggested that the development of ethically appropriate guidelines on MAID body donations may positively guide the anatomical community., (© 2019 American Association of Anatomists.)

When legal challenges to research confidentiality arise, researchers are expected to resist while the institutions that approve their research provide legal support to enable that resistance. Although researchers have done their part, university administrators have been much less consistent doing theirs. Canada's federal policy now affirms university administrations "must" provide independent legal representation and "encourages" them to develop policies that articulate how they will do so. A national survey of Research Ethics Board (REB) Chairs and administrators found only one such policy, which turned our attention to factors that impeded creation of others like it. Administrative inertia, a lack of clear lines of responsibility, and resource issues top the list of justifications respondents offered. Implications for researchers, REBs, and university administrators are discussed.

Study Design: Qualitative study using interpretive description methodology., Objectives: The purpose of this study was to better understand how ethical issues are experienced by university sports team athletic therapists and physical therapists., Background: In clinical practice, sports teams are associated with a range of ethical issues. Issues commonly reported in the literature include confidentiality, return-to-play decisions, conflicts of interest, advertising, doping, and use of local anesthetic. To date, there has been limited examination of how athletic therapists and physical therapists involved with sports teams experience these ethical issues, and limited exploration of how these ethical issues, when encountered, are shaped by therapists' professional roles and responsibilities., Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 athletic or physical therapists working with sports teams in 5 Canadian provinces. The data were analyzed inductively, using a recursive approach and constant comparative techniques., Results: Four key themes were developed relating to the participants' experiences of ethical issues: establishing and maintaining professional boundaries, striving for respectful and effective collaboration, seeking answers to ethical concerns, and living with the repercussions of challenging decisions., Conclusion: While many ethical issues reported by participants resemble those faced by sports medicine physicians, they are experienced in distinctive ways, due to differences in professional roles and identities. Issues concerning professional boundaries were also more prominent for the study participants than the literature has reported them to be for sports medicine physicians. Effective communication and enhanced collaboration appear to be key elements in managing these ethical challenges.

Recent studies conducted at American post-secondary institutions report that a high proportion of college students seeking evaluations for either attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or learning disorders fail symptom validity tests (SVTs), calling into question the validity of their performance on standardized assessment measures. The current study undertook to investigate the rate of SVT failure in a Canadian post-secondary sample, drawing on assessment data from a large regional assessment facility. Evaluating the data from 144 consecutively tested students, the present study found that 14.6% of students failed an SVT, and those who failed returned lower scores on many other assessment measures compared with those who passed. These findings indicate that the rate of symptom exaggeration or low test-taking effort may be lower in Canadian samples than in U.S. samples but still represents a substantial number of students. Recommendations and suggestions for future directions are discussed.

Background: Despite potential benefits of the return of research results to research participants, the TriCouncil Policy Statement (TCPS), which reflects Canadian regulatory ethical requirements, does not require this. The policies of Canadian research ethics boards (REBs) are unknown., Objectives: To examine the policies of Canadian university based REBs regarding returning results to research participants, and to ascertain if the presence/absence of a policy may be influenced by REB member composition., Design: Email survey of the coordinators of Canadian university based REBs to determine the presence/absence of a policy on return of research results to research participants both during an ongoing study and at conclusion. REB coordinators were asked to return a copy of the policy or guidelines and to describe the member composition of their REB., Findings: Of 50 REBs that were contacted 34 (68%) responded and 22 (64.7%) met the inclusion criteria. Two (9.1%) had a policy that governed the return of research results while on a study, and seven (31.8%) following the completion of a study. Presence of an ethicist or a lawyer on the REB did not influence the presence/absence of such policies. No REBs had specific guidelines describing how participants should be informed of results., Conclusions: Most REBs did not require researchers to disclose study results to research participants either during or following a study. Thus this study identifies an ethical shortcoming in the conduct of human research in Canada. It has also demonstrated that there are no clear recommendations by REBs to facilitate the return of results to participants following research projects.

No discussion of academic freedom, research integrity, and patient safety could begin with a more disquieting pair of case studies than those of Nancy Olivieri and David Healy. The cumulative impact of the Olivieri and Healy affairs has caused serious self examination within the biomedical research community. The first part of the essay analyses these recent academic scandals. The two case studies are then placed in their historical context-that context being the transformation of the norms of science through increasingly close ties between research universities and the corporate world. After a literature survey of the ways in which corporate sponsorship has biased the results of clinical drug trials, two different strategies to mitigate this problem are identified and assessed: a regulatory approach, which focuses on managing risks associated with industry funding of university research, and a more radical approach, the sequestration thesis, which counsels the outright elimination of corporate sponsorship. The reformist approach is criticised and the radical approach defended.

This article discusses the possibilities and pitfalls of constructing a code of ethics for university professors. Professional, educational, legal, and policy questions regarding the goals, format, and content of an academic ethics code are raised and a series of aspirational principles and enforceable standards that might be included in such a document are presented for discussion and debate.