Engineering ethics and whistleblowing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_ethics

Engineering ethics is the field of applied ethics and system of moral principles that apply to the practice of engineering. The field examines and sets the obligations by engineers to society, to their clients, and to the profession. As a scholarly discipline, it is closely related to subjects such as the philosophy of science, the philosophy of engineering, and the ethics of technology.

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Whistleblowing


The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster is used as a case study of whistleblowing and organizational behavior including groupthink.

Main article: Whistleblower

A basic ethical dilemma is that an engineer has the duty to report to the appropriate authority a possible risk to others from a client or employer failing to follow the engineer's directions. According to first principles, this duty overrides the duty to a client and/or employer.<24> An engineer may be disciplined, or have their license revoked, even if the failure to report such a danger does not result in the loss of life or health.<25>

In many cases, this duty can be discharged by advising the client of the consequences in a forthright matter, and ensuring the client takes the engineer's advice. However, the engineer must ensure that the remedial steps are taken and, if they are not, the situation must be reported to the appropriate authority.<26> In very rare cases, where even a governmental authority may not take appropriate action, the engineer can only discharge the duty by making the situation public.<27> As a result, whistleblowing by professional engineers is not an unusual event, and courts have often sided with engineers in such cases, overruling duties to employers and confidentiality considerations that otherwise would have prevented the engineer from speaking out.<28>

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/from-tragedy-to-travesty-drugs-tested-on-survivors-of-bhopal-6262412.html

From tragedy to travesty: Drugs tested on survivors of Bhopal

In the second part of a special report, Nina Lakhani exposes how survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster became unwitting guinea pigs in studies funded by Western drug companies

Nina Lakhani
Tuesday 15 November 2011

Secret reports seen by The Independent reveal that drug trials funded by western pharmaceutical firms at the Indian hospital set up for survivors of the Bhopal disaster violated international ethical standards and could have put patients at risk.

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The Bhopal trials were first exposed by the leak of a memorandum sent by the hospital trustees – several of whom also served on the ethics committee that would have approved the studies – ordering "all current and proposed trials to be immediately stopped".

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