Goodbye to all that: the end of moderate protectionism in human subjects research.

Federal policies on human subjects research have undergone a progressive transformation. In the early decades of the twentieth century, federal policies largely relied on the discretion of investigators to decide when and how to conduct research. This approach gradually gave way to policies that aug...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hastings Center Report Vol. 31; no. 3; pp. 9 - 18
Main Author: Moreno JD
Format: Journal Article
Published: Wiley-Blackwell May/Jun2001
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:Federal policies on human subjects research have undergone a progressive transformation. In the early decades of the twentieth century, federal policies largely relied on the discretion of investigators to decide when and how to conduct research. This approach gradually gave way to policies that augmented investigator discretion with externally imposed protections. We may now be entering an era of even more stringent external protections. Whether the new policies effectively absolve investigators of personal responsibility for conducting ethical research, and whether it is wise to do so, remains to be seen.