News and Views

For the first time, a majority of U.S. medical schools have implemented strong conflict-of-interest policies, according to the 2010 American Medical Student Association (AMSA) PharmFree Scorecard.  The Scorecard, developed by AMSA and the Pew Prescription Project, finds that 79 of 152 medical schools (52 percent) now receive a grade of A or B for their policies governing pharmaceutical industry interaction with medical school faculty and students, compared with 45 last year.  Related resource: AMSA Scorecard with grades for each medical school.

Speaking of the pharmaceutical industry, the public ranks it with oil, health insurance and tobacco as industries needing more regulation, according to a new poll by Harris Interactive. Together with the telecommunications and automobile industries, these are the least trusted businesses in America. "When asked which of a list of 17 industries are generally honest and trustworthy, almost half (48%) of all adults say 'none of these' which is the highest number giving this negative response since we first asked this question in 2003," the firm reported. The findings confirm a number of other studies showing that public trust of institutions is in decline. Related resource: Press release on survey findings, Dec. 2, 2010.

Can empathy be learned?  And if so, can it be taught?  An innovative project at Capital University in Ohio aims to find out by immersing six selected students in activities designed to let them "walk a mile in someone else's shoes."  The Empathy Project was conceived by Capital President Denvy Bowman, who calls it a "monumental undertaking" but is not willing to divulge many details while students are applying for the chance to participate.  Below is a short video of Bowman describing the project:



A University of Michigan study concluded several months ago that today's college students are not as empathetic as students of the 1980s and 1990s.  Sara Konrath, a researcher on the 30-year study of 14,000 students, suggests that exposure to media and social networking could be a reason: "Compared to 30 years ago, the average American now is exposed to three times as much nonwork-related information. In terms of media content, this generation of college students grew up with video games, and a growing body of research, including work done by my colleagues at Michigan, is establishing that exposure to violent media numbs people to the pain of others."  Related resources:  University of Michigan research on students and empathy; sample questions from the University of Michigan study.

One in every four people in the world paid a bribe to a public official during the last year, according to a study by Transparency International released this week on International Anti-Corruption Day.  The Berlin-based non-governmental agency reported data on small-scale bribery from polls of more than 91,000 people in 86 countries and territories.  While bribes were frequently paid to health, education and tax authorities, it was law enforcement that proved most corrupt, with 29 percent of people who had dealings with police saying they paid a bribe. Worldwide, sub-Saharan Africa was the region reporting the greatest incidence of bribery with more than one person in two saying they had bribed government officials in the last year.  The Middle East and North Africa was the next most corrupt region, followed by the former Soviet republics, South America, the Balkans and Turkey, the Asia-Pacific region, the European Union, and North America.  Related resource: Transparency International 2010 Global Corruption Barometer.

News and Views

Can physical cleanliness cause people to be more virtuous? A new study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology suggests there may be some truth in the old saying, "cleanliness is next to godliness." But the researchers at University of Toronto and London Business School warn that this "elevated sense of moral self" may also prompt "severe moral judgment" of others. "Three experiments using different manipulations of cleanliness showed that participants primed with self cleanliness rendered harsher moral judgments on contested social issues and activities with ambiguous moral implications."

The world has become slightly less peaceful in the last year, according to the Global Peace Index, a study that ranks New Zealand, Iceland and Japan as the most peaceful nations. The GPI looks at domestic and international conflict, safety and security in 149 countries. Indicators include the likelihood of violent demonstrations and criminal activity. Published in cooperation with The Economist, the report explains, "In some nations, an intensification of conflicts and growing instability appears to be linked to the global economic downturn in late 2008 and early 2009." Not surprisingly, Iraq was rated as least at peace, followed by Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan.

CEOs of companies in the United Nations Global Compact say their firms' future success depends on becoming more sustainable. A survey of 766 CEOs also found that 96 percent believe sustainability should be fully integrated into the strategy and operations of a company -- up from 72 percent in 2007. What is driving the business case for this? For more than 70 percent it is “brand, trust and reputation”; only 44 percent justify sustainability efforts on the basis of anticipated revenue growth or cost reduction. Members of the Global Compact might be expected to be more engaged than other companies in sustainable practices. Related resource: A New Era of Sustainability: UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study 2010.

Countries representing more than half of world exports now enforce a ban on foreign bribery, continuing a six-year trend of positive progress, according to the 2010 Progress Report of Transparency International (TI). However, among the 36 countries that have ratified the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business 20 still have taken little or no action on enforcement. "The difficult economic environment is no excuse for OECD governments to ignore their collective commitment to stop foreign bribery," said TI in a statement. "To the contrary, cleaning up foreign bribery must be regarded as a key part of the reforms needed to overcome the worldwide recession."

Doctors with deep religious beliefs are significantly less likely to take actions to hasten the death of the terminally ill, according to a British survey of 8,000 doctors. Researchers at London University School of Medicine said the findings suggest a need for greater acknowledgement of how beliefs influence care. Responses were from doctors practicing in a wide variety of fields, with a particular focus on those in palliative and elderly care. Those who described themselves as very or extremely non-religious were about 40% more likely than religious doctors to prescribe continuous deep sedation until death, the study in the Journal of Medical Ethics reported. Related resource: "Doctors' Religious Beliefs Strongly Influence End-of-Life Decisions, Study Finds," Science Daily 26 August 2010.

Spending on state Supreme Court elections has more than doubled in the past decade, says a research report by Hofstra Law School Professor James Sample. Campaign spending rose from $83.3 million in 1990-1999 to $206.9 million in 2000-2009, heightening concerns that special interests are playing a more dominant role in choosing jurists. The report, "The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2000-2009: Decade of Change," features a foreword by Former U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who writes, "Elected Judges in many states are compelled to solicit money for their election campaigns, sometimes from lawyers and parties appearing before them."

News and Views

People are as willing as ever to inflict pain on innocent strangers in blind obedience to authority, according to recent experiments replicating the infamous 1963 study by psychologist Stanley Milgram. In the original experiment, familiar to many who have taken undergraduate psychology courses, ordinary citizens were told they were participating in a study of the effects of punishment on learning. The subjects were instructed to administer electric shocks to a "learner" (who was strapped to a chair and fitted with electrodes) whenever test questions were answered incorrectly. Eighty percent were willing to deliver what they believed were 150-volt shocks; 65 percent continued as the level increased to 450 volts and appeared to cause great harm to the learners. The new study, published in the current issue of American Psychologist, yields similar results, though the researcher at Santa Clara University modified the methodology somewhat to comply with ethics rules regarding human subjects. Additional resource: Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, New York: Harper & Row, 1975.

On his first full day in office, President Obama issued an executive order designed to limit the influence of special interests by closing the revolving door of lobbyists in and out of the executive branch of government. Though the order is entitled, "Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel," its scope is limited to specific matters involving lobbyists: a ban on gifts by lobbyists to employees; recusal of political appointees from participating in matters relevant to the interests of past employers or clients; and restrictions on lobbying access to the executive branch by political appointees after they leave their government jobs. Not surprisingly, the policy is already proving difficult to maintain in a city with a tradition of cozy relationships between lobbyists and public officials. Additional resources: Office of Government Ethics internal memorandum on the policy; the ethics pledge signed by political appointees; and a publication from the Council on Excellence in Government describing a broader range of ethical principles and issues relevant to public-sector institutions.

Companies in China, India and Russia are among the most likely to bribe public officials when doing business abroad, according to a new report by Transparency International, a non-governmental organization working to combat corruption. By contrast, businesses based in Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands and Switzerland are among the least likely to engage in bribery. The industries most prone to bribe officials are construction, real estate, oil/gas, mining and heavy manufacturing. Financial services and technology rank among the least corrupt. TI Chairman Huguette Labelle said, “The inequity and injustice that corruption causes makes it vital for governments to redouble their efforts to enforce existing laws and regulations on foreign bribery and for companies to adopt effective anti-bribery programmes."

Is intense competition for online "eyeballs and page views" is eroding the ethical and quality standards of journalism? Bob Steele of The Poynter Institute thinks so. Writing last month in a publication of Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, he argues that the "time-honored journalistic values of accuracy and fairness are eroded" when information is posted online, in real time, without verification. As editors increasingly encourage reporters to blog and Twitter, and as traditional media rely on non-journalistic blogs and web posts as sources, the resulting errors undermine credibility. Steele concludes, "The intense financial forces, the thinner staffs, and the risk-taking culture create a mixture where heightened quality control measures are all the more essential."