Ethics Grand Rounds: “Why They Blow the Whistle: Exposing Abuses in Medical Research”

Dr. Elliot is professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota. He attended Davidson College, the Medical University of South Carolina and Glasgow University in Scotland. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award, the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History at the Library of Congress, a resident fellowship at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy, and a Weatherhead Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In addition to his faculty position at the University of Minnesota, Elliott is an affiliate faculty member in the Bioethics Center at the University of Otago in New Zealand, where he previously completed a postdoctoral position. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Mother Jones and American Scholar.

Talk Description: In popular culture, whilstleblowers are conscience-driven heroes who triumph against the odds. Yet when research abuse occur, medical institutions deny wrongdoing even when it is glaringly obvious, and rarely do mistreated research subjects or their families get any real justice. Whistleblowing is the exception, not the rule. In many scandles, doctors and other staff members remain silent for years while unwitting research subjects are abused. If abuses do come to light, the researchers are usually protected by the medical establishment while the whistleblowers are punished.