ties in the suburbs were being passed up be- 

 cause the potential job applicants could not 

 obtain suitable nearby housing, or were subject 

 to overt or subtle discrimination. 



A standard four-cell research design was pre- 

 pared. Before and after measurements were to 

 be made of an experimental group, which 

 would be given both job and housing counsel- 

 ling. Before and after measures were also to 

 be made of a control group, which would only 

 receive the standard job counselling. Ultimate- 

 ly, a two-cell design was approved by OMB, 

 permitting only before and after measures of 

 the experimental group. 



There are obvious abuses and excesses which 

 can and have occurred in the use of human, 

 control populations. The infamous withholding 

 of medical care from a control group of syphi- 

 litic patients is a clear example. But it would 

 appear that the government has been so sensi- 

 tized by this scandal as to forbid all control 

 group studies no matter how innocuous the 

 benefit withheld. We believe that this is an 

 important issue. 



Privacy 



The Privacy Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-579) was de- 

 signed to provide certain safeguards for an indivi- 

 dual against invasion of personal privacy by re- 

 quiring Federal agencies and all those activities 

 funded by such agencies to control the collection, 

 maintenance, use, and dissemination of personal 

 information so as to protect the privacy of the 

 subject. The act established a Privacy Protection 

 Study Commission to study and record data sys- 



tems and to develop recommendations to the 

 President and Congress regarding legislation that 

 might be required to implement the intentions of 

 the act. The Commission developed a summary of 

 recommendations regarding research and statisti- 

 cal activities that clearly affect the maintenance 

 and use of research data. It recommended that: 

 The Congress provide by statute that no record 

 or information contained therein collected or 

 maintained for a research or statistical purpose 

 under Federal authority or with Federal funds, 

 be used in individually identifiable form to 

 make any decisions to take any action directly 

 affecting the individual to whom the record per- 

 tains, except within the context of the research 

 plan or protocol, or with the specific authoriza- 

 tion of such individual. 



It goes on to recommend a number of other oper- 

 ational features, and in each the data gathered in 

 federally financed research are covered. There- 

 fore, contracts or grant-supported research out- 

 side of work done in agencies is affected. In 

 Commission hearings no strong opinion was of- 

 fered predicting that basic research would be hin- 

 dered significantly by the regulations. Only time 

 will tell whether statutes or regulations which 

 might be adopted will have a hindering elTect on 

 research. It is safe to predict, however, that a va- 

 riety of social science and behavioral science re- 

 search methods will have to be changed if these 

 recommended requirements become law. Anthro- 

 pology and psychology societies have developed 

 codes of ethics covering the use of human sub- 

 jects and the use and protection of privacy in re- 

 spect to the data generated in behavioral and an- 

 thropological research. The "Privacy and Behav- 

 ioral Research" report cited above deals with this 

 subject. This was also an investigative report 

 making recommendations. 



BARRIERS TO OPTIMUM SUPPORT AND CONDUCT OF BASIC RESEARCH BY THE MISSION AGENCIES 289 



