An Ethical Framework for Presenting Scientific Results to Policy-Makers

Abstract

Scientists have the ability to influence policy in important ways through how they present their results. Surprisingly, existing codes of scientific ethics have little to say about such choices. I propose that we can arrive at a set of ethical guidelines to govern scientists' presentation of information to policymakers by looking to bioethics: roughly, just as a clinician should aim to promote informed decision-making by patients, a scientist should aim to promote informed decisionmaking by policymakers. Though this may sound like a natural proposal, I show it offers guidance that conflicts with standard scientific practices. I conclude by considering one cost of the proposal: that it would prevent scientists from acting as advocates in a way that is currently common in certain fields. I accept that the proposal would restrict scientists' political advocacy rights, but argue that the benefits of adopting it -promoting democratic governance -justify the restriction. I. A PUZZLEThe Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Study (GBD) is "the single largest and most detailed scientific effort ever conducted to quantify levels and trends in health." More than 2300 researchers from more than 130 countries collect 1 and analyze data on more than 300 diseases and injuries, aiming to put together a comprehensive picture of global health from 1990 to the present. Not surprisingly, its 2 results are widely reported and discussed by scientists, policy-makers, and the public at large. Probably the most high-profile of its results is its summary ranking of the world's largest health problems, ranked by disability-adjusted life years (DALYs): 3A striking thing about this list is the absence of cancer. One might conclude from this that, perhaps contrary to our preconceptions, cancer is not a major global health problem. That, however, would be the wrong lesson to draw. Cancer is a major global health problem. According to the GBD, it was responsible for 213.2 million DALYs in 2016 -far more than ischemic heart disease. Why, then, is it missing from the list? Because the GBD team chose to rank cancers separately by site. Thus, lung cancer ranked 19th, liver cancer 32nd, stomach cancer 36th, and so forth. Adding all cancers together, however, would see them rise to the top. rank Disorder DALYs (millions)

How to Measure Effect Sizes for Rational Decision Making

“…Conclusions drawn from idealized decision-theoretic models underdetermine which outcome measures or absolute and baseline risks researchers should report to inform actual decision makers. Important further considerations to justify reporting principles based on the three described options include ethical aspects (see Schroeder 2022), insights on how to best communicate risks to people (see Spiegelhalter 2017), and the relative advantages of extrapolating absolute outcome measures, relative ones, and absolute and baseline risks. Nevertheless, the decision-theoretic dominance of absolute measures challenges both the current practice of only reporting relative measures and suggestions to report both.…”

Varying Evidential Standards as a Matter of Justice

“…Responsiveness may be interpreted strongly, as requiring that advisors strictly align value judgements with the values of policymakers or the public, in cases where such values are reasonable (see Schroeder [2017], [2021]), thereby 'taking the scientist's values out of the equation' (Schroeder [2022a], p. 57). Responsiveness may also be interpreted weakly, as requiring scientists to 'factor in' stakeholders' values without requiring scientists to put aside their own 'hard earned normative knowledge' (Alexandrova [2018], p. 432), allowing that the ultimate choice made by advisors may misalign with their audience's values.…”

Red herrings about relative measures: A response to Hoefer and Krauss

“…Another premise could involve appealing to ethical or political considerations which could inform how scientists should present their results. A forthcoming article by Schroeder (2022) does exactly this, and indeed Schroeder concludes that, given a very modest ethical principle (namely, that physicians and scientists should promote informed decision-making), the arguments in Sprenger and Stegenga (2017) establish that absolute outcome measures should be reported. Though Schroeder does not explicitly add the constraint regarding relative outcome measures, he does argue that irrelevant information should not be reported, and the arguments in Sprenger and Stegenga (2017) conclude that relative outcome measures are irrelevant to decision-makers.…”