The bias for publishing positive clinical-research results can cause physicians to question journal articles as dependable sources of product information.

Primary materials including interviews with some of the volunteer subjects provide information on the experiments into the pathogenic mechanism of yellow fever.

Specific contributions to a scientific article entitle the contributor to be included as an author; requests for authorship by those who have not made those specific contributions are unethical.

Anyone who has substantiated suspicion of ethical misconduct in research has a responsibility to report that suspicion to the appropriate authorities. He or she should not gossip about suspected misconduct with friends, colleagues, or others.

Institutional review boards (IRBs) have the responsibility to ensure the protection of human-research subjects and are legally liable if they fail to do so.

Institutional review boards (IRBs) play a role in approving research that involves human subjects.

Faculty gifts to individual residents or students can be perceived as favoritism and should be avoided, unless the same gift is made available to all.

Physicians have an ethical responsibility to be functionally literate in health statistics and able to explain information such as a test’s positive predictive value to their patients.

The question that comes to mind when one considers the risks of a clinical trial is, “Why would anyone agree to participate?” Interviews with trial volunteers and their family members make clear that often it is the appeal of discovering something new and unknown.

Putting the interest of patients first means attending to what the patient thinks is most important as well as treating medically significant symptoms and conditions.