Ethical Issues in Communication of Chemistry

The present manuscript aims to present several ideas and reflections about ethical issues in chemistry communication, which represent a deepening and updating of an oral presentation at the Symposium of EUCHEMS working party “Ethics in Chemistry”, held in Rome the 6th-7th July 2017. These concepts could be useful for the community of chemists to face future challenges concerning the relationship between Chemistry and Society. Some basic features of modern science, communication and communication of science are presented, since they represent an important framework to build a discourse about ethics in chemistry communication. The specificity of chemistry, such as its features as inductive, creative, flexible, transversal and central science, need to be considered by chemists to be aware of ethical issues specific of chemistry. In the present paper I discuss some ethical issues related to the communication of chemists within the scientific community, such as scientific publishing and artificial intelligence uses, and some ethical concerns related to the communication to the general public and the effect on the society of unethical communication related to topics such as sustainability, food, health and environmental impact of chemical research. The manuscript end with some reflections about the need of ethics of chemistry in chemists’ training.