Equitably choosing study populations in biomedical research
Projectomschrijving
Wat dwingt rechtvaardigheid ons (niet) te doen als men beslissen moet waar en met welke populaties een studie ethisch verantwoord kan worden verricht? In dit project wordt een literatuuranalyse gedaan naar het concept rechtvaardigheid in biomedisch onderzoek. Er wordt een empirische analyse gemaakt van relevante klinische publicaties en er wordt een normatieve studie gedaan om ethisch noodzakelijke voorwaarden te formuleren.
Uitkomsten zullen zijn: een beschrijving van de huidige selectie van proefpersonen en ethisch verantwoorde criteria voor het rechtvaardig kiezen van studielocatie en -populatie.
Verslagen
Eindverslag
Samenvatting van de aanvraag
Clinical research is conducted according to international (ethical) guidelines, e.g. the WMA’s Declaration of Helsinki (DoH) and the CIOMS international ethical guidelines for biomedical research. Originally these ethical guidelines focused mostly on informed consent, scientific validity and a proper balance of benefit over burdens. Ethically speaking the protection of the research subject was its main goal. Recent versions of international guidelines show a new emphasis on justice as one of the conditions for clinical research. This new emphasis works out in several aspects of the design and conduct of a study, resulting in several relatively new paragraphs in the 2000 version of the Declaration of Helsinki and the 2002 CIOMS guidelines. This project is focused on the phase in which the study is designed: what does justice require us to do (and not do) before we can decide (1) where on earth and (2) with what kind of subjects the study can be done in an ethically justifiable way? We take these conditions to be necessary (not sufficient) for healthy research. The first question derives from the condition that research projects be “responsive to the needs” of a population. The second question concerns participation in research. In response to an overuse of certain groups in the past and a limited external validity of study results, guidelines and requirements for research grants now demand a justification for the exclusion of research subjects. Research apparently is something one can (also) profit from, and this profit should be distributed equitable. We aim to describe current selection of study location and population and to develop ethically justifiable benchmarks for the design of healthy research on these two issues.