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The settlement of the lawsuit against the University of Iowa (The ASHA Leader, Nov. 6, 2007) resulting from the 1939 master's thesis by Mary Tudor and her mentor, Wendell Johnson, presents an opportunity for ASHA members to examine their own clinical and research ethics. While such ethical issues as informed consent and power differentials were clearly compromised, the study did not offer mere black-and-white examples of moral decision-making.
Ambrose and Yairi's article in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, Gretchen Reynolds' long piece in The New York Times magazine, and my own symposium and edited book on ethics and the Tudor study, including ASHA honorees Oliver Bloodstein, Katherine Harris, and Ehud Yairi, as well as Reynolds, Nicholas Johnson (son of Wendell), and others, examined the study and its implications in detail. Johnson presents a passionate and scholarly defense of his father, and Bloodstein honors his mentor while acknowledging the moment of "ethical blindness."
In my opinion, Wendell Johnson remains not only one of the founders but one of the heroes of our profession. However, the lawsuit settlement should remind us to study and live by the tenets of the ASHA Code of Ethics and the Belmont Report. ASHA might also consider certification from the National Institutes of Health training course, computer-based training on the protection of human research subjects, to be acceptable for continuing education credit.
Robert Goldfarb
Garden City, NY
goldfarb2@adelphi.edu
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