Memo: Regarding "Preventable Deaths"

Further complaints surrounding this document or events mentioned within it will be considered harassment and may lead to disciplinary action. (800 words)

Greetings all.

This document aims to provide answers to a series of recent queries regarding Ethics Committee operations. These answers have been peer reviewed to ensure accuracy. Further complaints surrounding this document or events mentioned within it will be considered harassment and may lead to disciplinary action.

Recently, several members of staff from a variety of departments have come forward expressing concerns regarding "preventable deaths." These complaints have repeatedly misattributed specific incidents as "preventable" and continue to use the term outside of its own definition. For clarity, we define a preventable death as any incident resulting in the death of an involved individual which could have reasonably been foreseen and prevented. This definition provides a clear and concise set of guidelines by which we can determine if an ethical violation has taken place.

In order to demonstrate how this definition is applied by the Ethics Committee, several recent examples have been provided.

Example 1: In early January, 2024, Researcher Shane Yapes was performing an experiment on a newly discovered anomaly which has yet to be classified. Prior to this experiment, none of the instances involved had shown any form of aggression towards humans. Despite this, Researcher Yapes was assaulted by several subjects, which forced the exterior of Yapes' body to crystallise completely after only five minutes. The instances then entered a docile state again and were successfully returned to containment.

Several complaints were filed regarding the Ethics Committee's inaction regarding the events of this incident, a number of which referred to the results of this experiment as a "preventable death." This incident does not align with our previously-established definition of a preventable death due to the first criteria in bold: "death of an involved individual." Whilst bodily harm did come upon Researcher Yapes, he did not die as a result of the incident. In fact, Researcher Yapes still remains alive today, currently being maintained inside of Site-402's Critical Asset wing whilst a research team determines a method of extracting his memories surrounding another, classified project. Yapes' survival directly disproves claims that this scenario was a preventable death, and claims that this was such an event only serves to harm Yapes' case.

Example 2: Following several classified events, Polly Lanthum, former POI-10239-B, committed suicide. A lengthy note was found within her apartment, which detailed the classified events as the primary reason surrounding her suicide. Particularly, Matt Nowak, her former Foundation handler, was named several times in the note.

Similar to example one, multiple complaints were filed regarding the Ethics Committee's inaction in response to these events, once again often referring to the incident as a "preventable death." This incident fails to meet the second major requirement to be considered a preventable death: foresight. The Foundation cannot be expected to monitor all individuals it comes into contact with, nor can it be expected to read the minds of those individuals. When an individual feels they have been mistreated during a Foundation operation, it is their duty to come forward when an incident takes place to prevent further development. Not only did Lanthum not provide any evidence surrounding the misconduct described in her note, she also did not come forward as events were fresh, making it exponentially more challenging to verify any accusations made.

In the future, should you witness any ethics violation take place, we implore you to come forward as soon as possible.

Example 3: During a routine inspection of Satellite BX-2901A6, astronauts on board discovered various sections of the main hull too damaged to be repaired using resources on board. Mission Control were informed of this; however, no action was taken. Sixty-seven days later, the craft imploded. This is believed to be due to the previously identified damage. All four members of maintenance personnel aboard were killed.

Following the deaths of these personnel, multiple other members of staff working on the project resigned, citing the Ethics Committee's handling of the situation as the reason for their resignations. No intervention took place in this scenario due to the third aspect of a preventable death: our ability to prevent it. Whilst theoretically a shuttle containing the necessary resources or an evacuation vessel could have been dispatched to their location, in reality we simply do not have the funding necessary for such a response to take place. An analysis of the scenario determined that the work being carried out on Satellite BX-2901A6 was not of a great enough importance to justify prevention measures being put in place. We could not have saved them if we wanted to.

Overall, we hope these examples have helped to clarify our approach to scenarios involving "preventable deaths" and have shed some light on our decision-making process regarding recent controversies. It should be mentioned that, despite our best efforts, we were unable to find an example of an actual incident which falls under our definition of "preventable death." We attribute this to our effective protocols and response-times providing adequate care for all individuals under our supervision.

Thank you for your concerns,
The Ethics Committee