Question

what are the recommendations on protecting research participants?

Answer 1

Ans) Ethics refers to the correct rules of conduct necessary when carrying out research. We have a moral responsibility to protect research participants from harm. However important the issue under investigation psychologists need to remember that they have a duty to respect the rights and dignity of research participants.

- Great deal of progress has been made in recent decades in changing the culture of research to incorporate more fully this ethical responsibility into protocol design and implementation.

- In the 1960s and 1970s, a series of scandals concerning social science research and medical research conducted with the sick and the illiterate underlined the need to systematically and rigorously protect individuals in researchones.

- However, the resulting system of protections that evolved out of these rising concerns - although an improvement over past practices - is no longer sufficient.

- It is a patchwork arrangement associated with the receipt of federal research funding or the regulatory review and approval of new drugs and devices. In addition, it depends on the voluntary cooperation of investigators, research institutions, and professional societies across a wide array of research disciplines.

- Increasingly, the current system is being viewed as uneven in its ability to simultaneously protect the rights and welfare of research participants and promote ethically responsible research.

- Research involving human participants has become a vast academic and commercial activity, but this country's system for the protection of human participants has not kept pace with that growth.

- On the one hand, the system is too narrow in scope to protect all participants, while on the other hand, it is often so unnecessarily bureaucratic that it stifles responsible research.

- Although some reforms by particular federal agencies and professional societies are under way, it will take the efforts of both the executive and legislative branches of government to put in place a streamlined, effective, responsive, and comprehensive system that achieves the protection of all human participants and encourages ethically responsible research.

- Clearly, scientific investigation has extended and enhanced the quality of life and increased our understanding of ourselves, our relationships with others, and the natural world. - It is one of the foundations of our society's material, intellectual, and social progress. For many citizens, scientific discoveries have alleviated the suffering caused by disease or disability. Nonetheless, the prospect of gaining such valuable scientific knowledge need not and should not be pursued at the expense of human rights or human dignity. In the words of philosopher Hans Jonas, "progress is an optional goal, not an unconditional commitment, and its tempo compulsive as it may become, has nothing sacred about it".

- Since the 1974 formation of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and the activities in the early 1980s of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, American leaders have consistently tried to enhance the protections for human research participants. The research community has, in large part, supported the two essential protections for human participants: independent review of research to assess risks and potential benefits and an opportunity for people to voluntarily and knowledgeably decide whether to participate in a particular research protocol.

- The charter of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC), a presidential commission created in 1995, makes clear the Commission's focus: "As a first priority, NBAC shall direct its attention to consideration of protection of the rights and welfare of human research subjects."

- In our first five years, we focused on several issues concerning research involving human participants, issuing five reports and numerous recommendations that, when viewed as a whole, reflect our evolving appreciation of the numerous and complex challenges facing the implementation and oversight of any system of protections.

- The concerns and recommendations addressed in these reports reflect our dual commitment to ensuring the protection of those who volunteer for research while supporting the continued advance of science and understanding of the human condition.

- This report views the oversight system as a whole, provides a rationale for change, and offers an interrelated set of recommendations to improve the protection of human participants and enable the oversight system to operate more efficiently.