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Case Study

Based on the Belmont Report's ethical guidelines, explain how this study design violates the principle of seeking justice.

Case context: A research team plans to test an experimental vaccine. Because of high risk of side effects, they decide to recruit participants solely from prison populations, as they are a captive audience and easy to monitor. However, once the vaccine is proven safe and effective, it will only be distributed to the general public and will not be made available to the prison population.

Question: Based on the Belmont Report's ethical guidelines, explain how this study design violates the principle of seeking justice.

Sample answer: According to the Belmont Report, seeking justice requires distributing the risks and benefits of research fairly. In this case, the prison population bears all the risks of the experimental vaccine research, while the general public receives all the benefits, which is an unfair distribution.

Key points:

  • Defines seeking justice as distributing risks and benefits fairly
  • Explains that the prison population unfairly bears the risks of the research
  • Explains that the benefits of the research are only distributed to the general public
  • Concludes that this imbalance violates the ethical guidelines of the Belmont Report

Rubric: The answer should define justice in the context of the Belmont Report (fair distribution of risks and benefits) and explain how the case context violates this by making one group bear the risks (prisoners) while another benefits (the general public).

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Updated 2026-05-26

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KPU

Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU

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