This summer the CAUT Executive took vigorous exception to the draft code on research about human subjects proposed by the three federal research councils. All three councils have codes about research on human subjects. Now they are proposing a new code that would be applicable to all researchers.

CAUT recognises the special need for such codes in the medical, psychiatric and psychological fields. The horrors perpetrated by medical doctors under the Third Reich made that clear many years ago. However, the extension of these codes to other fields has proven to be far trickier than many thought.

The main difficulty is to distinguish between philosophical speculation on the subject and the writing of rules and regulations that might be applied by quasi-judicial bodies such as university ethics boards. Both kinds of work are important but they are different. If the difference is not borne in mind, the result is likely to be a document that is so vague and ambiguous that almost anything can be banned by appealing to it.

This is exactly what has happened with the proposed code from the three federal research councils. The CAUT Executive noted that it was a mistake to extend the coverage of the document from individual subjects to collectivities, which are defined as any group of persons who consider themselves a collectivity for any purpose.

This is then married to a medical model of research ethics which is defined to ensure that all research should do no harm to research subjects and should also do good for them. Then the document requires that no research on human subjects or collectivities should take place without the consent of the individuals or the leaders of the collectivity. It then follows, as the code states, that research should be done in partnership with the research subject.

However, the CAUT Executive pointed out, public policy research þ whether on industrial relations, the role of business or labour groups in politics, analysis of white supremacy or other hate groups, or research on the success or otherwise of the Liberal Party in applying the Red Book þ may well come to conclusions that individuals or groups consider to be harmful to their interests and certainly not beneficial to them.

The same may well be true of corporations (which are also collectivities) who do not take kindly to environmental scientists. The practical effect of the draft code would be to give all these groups a veto over any research about their collectivity which they did not like.

This, said the CAUT Executive, would make public policy research so anodyne that it would not be worth doing. It would also make Canadian researchers the laughingstock of the international community of scholars.

The draft code also requires that it be applied to all research, not just that funded by the federal government.

The CAUT Executive pointed out the devastating effect that the proposed code would have on literary criticism, which now could only be done with the consent of the subject or the subject's heirs with no limitations on the timescale involved. Similar problems arise with biographies, particularly of the unauthorized type.

The Executive noted there was plenty of protection in Canada for the living as a consequence of the laws on libel and slander as well as copyright law. Why give the powerful more tools to reduce research about their activities?

The code extends its regulation not only to works about the living but also those about the dead. This way, said the Executive leads to madness. The list of individuals and institutions who might like the power to veto historical works is almost infinite. It cited, for example, religions and religious sects, many of whom do not favour critical research about themselves.

It noted that recently certain members of the Sikh community in British Columbia tried to impose religious orthodoxy on the historical work of the holder of the chair in Sikh studies at the University of British Columbia. The university administration resisted this pressure, but presumably would, if the code were adopted, now have to require such orthodoxy from the faculty member for any future research.

In addition the working group had explicitly defined collectivities to include nations. Who would you consult for permission to write your book on Nazi Germany þ the German ambassador, Chancellor Kohl, the heirs of the Nazi leadership or of the Nazi prison guards and executioners?

The CAUT Executive then noted its second major objection to the code, namely that it combined both a philosophical treatise and a legal code. The Executive suggested there be two documents, otherwise confusion will be the result. The authors of the code try to camouflage this problem by arguing that it is not a regulation and that other bodies such as universities will have to develop the means to apply the document.

This, however, is an evasion since it is inevitable that the federal document, which is heavily regulatory in its language, would be introduced into university research ethics boards, appeals committees, and the like. The vague and fuzzy language would not only produce injustice but would be an open invitation to those who want to use such proceedings to attack free speech and academic freedom in the academy. The last thing we need at the moment, the Executive said, was an open invitation to such litigation.

CAUT objected to the procedures suggested by the document which sidetracked university senates or general faculties' councils, were unfair to researchers and were impractical in small universities. It also noted there was no discussion of costs and suggested Ottawa should find new funds for the universities to allow them to make the code operative.

Finally CAUT noted that there were three areas touched on in the draft code which might benefit from further study þ anthropological research among the First Nations, research in the Third World, and the impact of research on women particularly in the medical sciences.

In a separate letter to the presidents of the three councils, the Executive Director of CAUT suggested the timetable for adoption of this document be extended to allow the Working Group to digest all the comments it has received.

The Executive of CAUT had already recommended that if there was a rush to have in place a code related to medicine, the Working Group should produce a document solely for that area since the draft code was both more detailed and more sensible in this context, even though still requiring revision.

The full text of the CAUT Executive's letter can be found on the CAUT web site at , as can the Executive Director's comments on university policies on research ethics, given at the learned societies meeting this June to the Society for the Study of Practical Ethics. Other CAUT material on research integrity can be found on this web site. The full text of the proposed code can be found at http://www.ethics.ubc.ca/co de/.