Assignment task: A fundamental ethical problem in statistics arises in experimentation. On one side, organizations such as the National Institute of Health insist on randomly assigning treatments such as flipping a coin for each patient to decide which treatment to assign.
The advantage of randomized experiments is that they allow reliable conclusions without the need to worry about lurking variables. However, some groups of AIDS patients have opposed randomization, instead of making the argument that each patient should be assigned the best available treatment (or to be more precise, whatever treatment is currently believed to be the best). The ethical dilemma is to balance the benefits to the patients in the study (who would like the opportunity to choose among available treatments) with future patients (who would be served by learning as soon as possible about the effectiveness of the competing treatments).
Q1. Compare and contrast at least two research designs that might be used to research life-threatening diseases/disorders. At least one design should present ethical issues and at least one design should minimize potential ethical issues.
Q2. Provide at least one Scripture passage that supports your ethical perspectives on medical/public health research.