Reference no: EM133035880

Question - Scenario 1 - You are a clinical researcher at a pharmaceutical company. Your company has produced a vaccine for an illness that is currently affecting a large number of people around the world. Given the high human and economic costs of the illness, your company is under pressure to certify the vaccine as safe and to begin distributing it to the public immediately, even though the standard set of clinical trials for a vaccine of this type are not yet complete. You and a colleague have been asked to jointly recommend whether the company should circumvent standard protocols and issue the vaccine. As of now, the vaccine appears to provide some protection against the illness and has not been shown to be harmful to experimental participants. What are the ethical issues in this case? What actions, if any, should you take?

Scenario 2 - You are a new associate auditor and have been assigned to the annual audit of a major information technology company. Your senior has asked you to review goodwill for possible impairments, while indicating that this is usually an area where they have found no issues.

The client provides you with a spreadsheet supporting the current goodwill valuation, which indicates that there is no need for an impairment. This valuation is based on projected average sales growth of 7% over the next three-to-five years. During your review, you note that the average sales growth over the last five years has averaged 5%. What are the ethical issues in this case? What actions, if any, should you take?