Using ASCO's Clinical Database for Commercial Research Raises Questions, Ethicists Say June 5, 2019 Robert I. Field, PhD, JD, a professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health and Kline School of Law, was quoted in a May 31 Medscape article about the ethical issues associated with allowing companies to sell access to patient data after they have been stripped of identifiers, without asking for patients' permission.