ETHICAL ADVERTISING RESEARCH STANDARDS - 3 CASE-STUDIES

Demands for major changes in the regulation of advertising have come f orth as a result of the December, 1998 publication of three articles c oncerning the cartoon character Joe Camel. The articles all appeared i n the same issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association an d received extensive coverage in major newpapers and magazines. This p aper examines each article to determine its conformance with 15 ethica l standards gleaned from various associations and journals; these stan dards represent the accepted professional norms of conduct for social science research. There is also a closer examination of one of the stu dies using discovery material from a law suit against the R.J. Reynold s firm. This affords a unique opportunity to examine the ethical stand ards used in that study. Five reviewers from different disciplines wer e asked to independently evaluate each of the papers. The results reve aled major concerns about the quality of each study. When these review s are laid against the ethical guidelines for social science research, it appears there were major flaws in the conduct of all three. Partic ularly highlighted are the advocacy nature of the research and serious questions concerning reliability and validity. Additional concern abo ut one of the studies is raised by the litigation discovery material, as there is evidence of pre-determined results, non-reporting of confl icting data, and ''adjusting'' of the sample to produce desired result s consistent with researchers' pre-conceived theories.