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research ethics – Life as an Extreme Sport
Life as an Extreme Sport

Teens Think Up Ethically Questionable STI Detection Method

Because there’s nothing the media likes more than a good look at all these teeny genius stories (except maybe catching a politician with their pants down, figuratively or literally), the primary non-Supreme-Court-ruling-on-Obamacare story making the rounds right now is the S.T.EYE condom, developed by three teenage boys from the Isaac Newton Academy in London. The S.T.EYE changes colour* when it comes in contact with a sexually transmitted infection (hence the name), which is being heralded as ground-breaking, revolutionary, disruptive technology—of course, since this was a TeenTech entry and winner. One of the young inventors, Daanyaal Ali, 14, says that they created the S.T.EYE because they wanted “to make something that made detecting harmful STIs safer than ever before, so that people can take immediate action in the privacy of their own homes without the often-scary procedures at the doctors.” (And as an aside, I find it fascinating that the teenagers want to reduce the embarrassment of going to clinics and emphasize “the privacy of your own home” line so frequently used by DTC advocates without stopping to consider the major hurdle of: duckie-pretty-pink--large-msg-131051452728if you’re putting the condom on to have sex with someone(s) else, then you’re not alone and we’re right back to the embarrassment-only this time it’s in the privacy of your own home while you’re naked in front of someone you want to have sex with. Which kind of sounds like it should be the beginning of an 80s movie starring Jon Cryer.)

This is an ambitious goal, and it’s laudable that teenagers are behind the idea; a validated, direct-to-consumer, at-home STI test that is inexpensive and accurate would be a great addition to public health. I’m not sure anyone can disagrees with that. The problem here is in implementation: the teens envision their test being wrapped up in a condom, which means that at least one person’s STI test will be revealed after-the-act, rather than before. While you may think “great, post-exposure notice,” it’s not that simple. What happens, for example, to informed consent? You’re talking about revealing whether or not someone has an STI to not just themselves but their partner(s)-at-the-moment; is there something that clearly identifies these as S.T.EYE condoms? Will it be impossible to miss that this condom your partner is providing (or that you provide a partner) will glow in the presence of an STI, regardless of who is infected? Will all parties need to sign a contract honoring the privacy of all participants before opening the condom? Will it come with a EULA-disguised-as-informed-consent? Remember, informed consent can’t be coercive-is right before having sex the bestest time in the world to assure non-coerced consent?

And other difficulties: how do you know who “triggered” the glow? Presumably it glows the same “uh-oh” colour regardless of which side of the condom the exposure occurred on. What if there are multiple partners? Are they considering impregnating dental dams with the same technology to include lesbians, or is this only for penis-based sex? Will the antibodies in the condom react to antigens in saliva? Can you still use lube? But, with exception of exactly who this condom is being created for, those issues are largely technical issues, and they’ve been well-deconstructed elsewhere.

Autonomy to make decisions, ability to consent after given full information, privacy of medical information; these are all pretty basic medical ethics 101 concepts, and they’ve been ignored here. I certainly don’t fault a trio of teenagers for that-but I can and do fault the teachers who encouraged them to pursue this line of thought, as well as the people who awarded it as innovative (not to mention the non-critical journalists breathlessly reporting it).

Innovation is the lifeblood of the technology industry; I understand that. My father had his own technology business when I was a kid. I was part of the technology innovation industry for a decade, and played a role in disruptive medical technologies.1 I was raised in Silicon Valley before it was Silicon Valley; I do understand, and I have no real interest or desire to stifle creativity, innovation, or even disruption. The problem is that in the pursuit of “can” at all costs, “should” is being left in the dust. Should we develop condoms that glow on exposure to STIs? Maybe not. Why? Well, how about the scenario where someone is killed for exposing someone to an STI? How about the person who is too embarrassed or ashamed to get help and kills themselves? What about the person who is shamed across their community, online, for having an STI, with a glowing condom as “proof”? And why do I even have to reach for such dramatic examples of “maybe we shouldn’t do this,” when “how do you manage consent” is such a present and problematic issue?

Of course, this isn’t just about innovation-it’s also about disruption. And the disruption here isn’t the idea of color-changing-upon-STI-detection condoms, but who is having the idea: teenagers. These teens are envisioning medical devices that are conveying diagnostic information, and they’re doing so outside of the normal channel that we expect medical devices to be developed in. That means the typical standards that are in place for medical device development (specificity, standards, quality control, labeling requirements, documented risks, etc) haven’t been addressed (or likely even thought about). To quote Nick, “In the world of distributed technology, these things are increasingly up to the individual, and we need to start adopting an “ethics of design” into our disruptive tech scene.” In other words, this project shouldn’t have made it to a technology competition without serious consideration given to plausibly, specificity, testing standards, and the other things that, presumably, the condom manufacturing company that has partnered with these teen boys will now take on.

It’s fantastic that there are challenges like TeenTech to encourage teenagers to pursue STEM-related careers. However, we need to make sure that we are setting the foundations to good research by teaching all aspects of research and development, including ethics, and make sure that our enthusiasm for encouragement doesn’t overshadow the necessity of ethical oversight.


*26 June 2015: Just a quick clarification, based in Maggie’s nice comment below: I want to stress that the idea the teens presented at TeenTech are conceptual ideas, not actual prototypes or working models. I do think that this stage is definitely where the “ethics of design” needs to be built in, but presumably—hopefully—that dialog will continue happening as the teenagers partner with a company to see what happens in science after you have that initial “oh hey” idea.

Apple Updates HealthKit’s Ethics Requirements—But Don’t Celebrate Just Yet

In the on-going drama of Apple’s ResearchKit and its lack of conforming to modern expectations regarding human subjects research, Apple has updated the guidelines for apps “using the HealthKit framework or conducting human subject research for health purposes, such as through the use of ResearchKit,”2 requiring “approval from an independent ethics review board.” At first blush, this seems great—one of the bigger problems raised when Apple debuted Health/ResearchKit in March was that there didn’t appear to be any nod to or concession towards the necessity of ethical oversight of human subjects research, a conversation that’s been growing louder over the years, especially as Silicon Valley has become more interested in the potential “killer app” money behind health care products.

Unfortunately, a closer read of the actual guidelines shows that there’s still a lot to be desired, and Apple really needs to actually bring in someone familiar with medical ethics and health policy to help them not only with the language of their guidelines for apps, but also to review any app that wants to utilize the HealthKit framework or use ResearchKit for health-related research.

ResearchKit-HSR-April302015The revised guidelines can be read here; a snapshot of section 27, HealthKit and Human Subject Research, taken on April 30, 2015, can be seen to the right (click to embiggen). The particular language regarding ethics review boards is at the very end:

27.10 Apps conducting health-related human subject research must secure approval from an independent ethics review board. Proof of such approval must be provided upon request.

Obviously, the first and largest problem here is that proof of ethics board approval isn’t required, it merely needs to be available upon request, but a tumble of questions spill forth from that:

  • Who will have the capability to request to see this paperwork?
  • Can end users say “I want to see the ethics board approval?”
  • What is going to trigger Apple wanting to see this paperwork?
  • Who’s going to make sure that there was actually approval, rather than just submission? It’s not like it’s unusual for companies to try to fly under regulatory radar and sell products or services that haven’t been approved for their specific use (see: 23andMe, LuSys Labs).
  • Who at Apple is qualified to know that the ethics approval was granted by a legitimate, registered institutional review board (IRB)? (Does Apple even know how to check this information?)
  • Is Apple’s use of “independent ethics review board” an acknowledgement of outside-the-US names (where “Research Ethics Committee” or “Independent Ethics Committee” are more frequently used), or is this a way to dodge the requirement of use of an IRB, which does have specific and legal meaning within the USA?
  • What level of paperwork is Apple expecting app submitters to have for IRB approval? (Will they need to show the full paperwork filed? Will Apple be policing that paperwork to make sure it was what was necessary for the app’s purpose? Will they require meeting minutes? A one-page sign-off from an IRB?)
  • Precisely what qualifies an ethics review board as “indepdenent”?
  • Uh, what is “health-related” research, anyhow?
  • If the ethics review board says “this isn’t something that needs our approval, so here’s a waiver,” will Apple accept that as “approval”? (Because technically, that’s not approval.)

And of course, separate from this is the fact that currently, research (at least within America) only requires IRB oversight if money for that research is coming from the federal government. While yes, it’s true that all legitimate academic journals will require that the research was approved by an IRB and followed the conventions of the Declaration of Helsinki, not everyone is doing research with an eye towards publication within a peer-reviewed journal. This means that anyone doing HealthKit or ResearchKit work who is not embedded within an academic institution that has access to an on-site IRB will have to pay a for-profit IRB to review the app design and research goals – will Apple be looking for proof of payment? (And of course, that assumes that Apple will consider a university IRB “independent.” ResearchKitHealthKitAppleI’m relatively sure Carl Elliott would have some choice words about that particular assumption.)

All in all, this-the entirety of section 27, to be frank-reads as Apple scrambling, post-debut, to mollify the science journalists and media-savvy ethicists who have been honest and critical about Apple’s failures to understand even the most basic aspects of protecting the subject in human subjects research. It doesn’t actually seem to indicate Apple understands what is actually required from those doing human subjects research, only that Apple lawyers seem to be aware that there is a serious potential for a lawsuit here, and thus are trying to figure out how to best cover their corporate asses.