Treat Human Subjects with More Humanity
By David Resnik
Buy-in to medical research requires that participating communities benefit from the data collected, and can trust how their data will be used.
This Article From Issue
July-August 2021
Volume 109, Number 4
Page 232
In 2020, when trials for the COVID-19 vaccines were in full swing, and Indigenous nations within the United States were being hit hard by the virus, about 460 Indigenous people from several of these nations participated in the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine trials. The review boards of the different nations had to approve involvement in the trials first. Not all members of these nations were happy about the decision, given a long history in which Indigenous people did not give consent to medical testing, or were not fully informed about procedures or how samples would be used.
QUICK TAKE
- When trust breaks down in research with human participants, significant harms can occur to the research participants as well as to institutions and communities.
- Institutional review boards (IRBs) have been in place since legislation was passed in the mid-1970s and federal agencies adopted rules for research that they fund.
- Issues of trust involve not just informed consent, but also disclosure about potential risk, additional use of biological samples, and financial conflicts of interest.
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