In response to public outrage stemming from exposés of animal abuse in research laboratories, the US Congress in 1985 mandated Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) to oversee animal use at institutions receiving federal grants. IACUCs were enjoined to respect public concern about the treatment of animals in research, but they were not specifically instructed whether or not to p...

The recent article on “Bioethical considerations at times of Zika virus”(1) is very interesting. As a new emerging disease, undoubtedly there is no clear information on the disease and use of diagnostic tests. Therapeutic options or preventive measures can be considered risks, leading to ethical issues. In fact, it is hard to manage the situation of any new emerging infection. Sometimes, the us...

BACKGROUND/RATIONALE Ethical issues regarding HIV/AIDS human research in the developing world remain under continuous evaluation; a critical area of concern includes informed consent. This paper reviews several of the most important ethical and practical aspects of informed consent in HIV research in developing countries. Enhancement of overall understanding of such key issues might promote hig...

While engaged in a research project involving the use of visual methods with children, the authors discovered that there are many ethical considerations beyond what could have been predicted at the outset. Some of these considerations are important with respect to research with children in general, while others arise more particularly when using visual methods. Framed around the two broad categ...

There is a growing concern that, like in many developed countries, medical practice in Singapore is fast losing its role and status as a profession. The commodification and industrialisation of health care, and weakening of its ethical foundations are among the main forces threatening to deprofessionalise the practice of medicine. To overcome these challenges, an honest and introspective review...

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is supporting a multiyear research initiative examining genetic influences on environmental response. Proponents of this new initiative, known as the Environmental Genome Project, hope that the information learned will improve our understanding of environmentally associated diseases and allow clinicians and public health officials to targe...

The ethical aspect of decision support systems (DSS) is an important area of concern for developers and users alike. Such systems impose frameworks and structures upon the cognitive decision making process to a greater or lesser extent, requiring the developer to anticipate, if consideration is given at all, the ethical questions that the decision maker might face. However, the level of researc...

Review boards responsible for vetting the ethical conduct of research have been criticised for their costliness, unreliability and inappropriate standards when evaluating some non-medical research, but the basic value of mandatory ethical review has not been questioned. When the standards that review boards use to evaluate research proposals are applied to review board practices, it is clear th...

The National Bioethics Advisory Commission has proposed that regulatory oversight for research with human subjects be extended beyond the protection of individual research participants to include the protection of social groups. To accomplish this, the commission recommends that investigators and ethics review boards a) work directly with community representatives to develop study methods that ...

Eight research protocols which had previously been approved by Ethical Research Committees (ERCs) were reviewed in simulated review committees set up during a symposium on medical ethics. Only three protocols were considered to provide fully adequate information to allow ethical review and only one protocol was thought to provide sufficient guarantees on the ethical issues raised by the propose...