I argue for a conception of health as a person's ability to achieve or exercise a cluster of basic human activities. These basic activities are in turn specified through free-standing ethical reasoning about what constitutes a minimal conception of a human life with equal human dignity in the modern world. I arrive at this conception of health by closely following and modifying Lennart Nordenfe...

In April 2002 the Nuffield Council on Bioethics published the Report The Ethics of Research Related to Healthcare in Developing Countries. It provides an ethical framework for those designing or conducting healthcarerelated research in developing countries. This paper will draw on the conclusions made in the Report, and present some of the recommendations. It will cover the importance of genuin...

This article attempts to define terminology and to describe a process for writing adaptive, early phase study protocols which are transparent, self-intuitive and uniform. It provides a step by step guide, giving templates from projects which received regulatory authorisation and were successfully performed in the UK. During adaptive studies evolving data is used to modify the trial design and c...

Does research on gender-based violence (GBV) pose greater than minimal risk to researchers and participants? This question needs to be understood particularly in light of hesitancy by Institutional Review Boards to approve research on GBV. The safety and risks of doing GBV studies and the implications for the ethical review process have not been a focus of much research. This qualitative study ...

I argue against two popular claims. The first is a descriptive, empirical claim about the nature of ordinary human experience which I call the psychological Narrativity thesis (PNT). According to PNT, 'each of us constructs and lives a "narrative" … this narrative is us, our identities' (Sacks O. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. London: Duckworth; 1985, 110). The second is a normative, e...

As evidenced by high-throughput sequencers, genomic technologies have recently undergone radical advances. These technologies enable comprehensive sequencing of personal genomes considerably more efficiently and less expensively than heretofore. These developments present a challenge to the conventional framework of biomedical ethics; under these changing circumstances, each research project ha...

BACKGROUND For ethical approval of a multicentre study in Canada, investigators must apply separately to individual Research Ethics Boards (REBs). In principle, the protection of human research subjects is of utmost importance. However, in practice, the process of multicentre ethics review can be time consuming and costly, requiring duplication of effort for researchers and REBs. We used our ex...

Marine bacterial communities are resistant to elevated carbon dioxide levels. Environmental Microbiology Reports, 6 (6). The NERC and CEH trademarks and logos ('the Trademarks') are registered trademarks of NERC in the UK and other countries, and may not be used without the prior written consent of the Trademark owner. Summary 31 It is well established that the release of anthropogenic derived ...

One of the fundamental ethical concerns about biomedical research is that it frequently exposes participants to risks for the benefit of others. To protect participants' rights and interests in this context, research regulations and guidelines set out a mix of substantive and procedural requirements for research involving humans. Risk thresholds play an important role in formulating both types ...

Eiko Nemitz,1,2 Jose L. Jimenez,3 J. Alex Huffman,3 Ingrid M. Ulbrich,3 Manjula R. Canagaratna,4 Doug R. Worsnop,4 and Alex B. Guenther2 1Atmospheric Sciences, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) Edinburgh, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Midlothian, UK 2Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA 3University of Colorado/Dept. of Chemistry and Bioc...