When Is Social Value Proportionate to Research Risks?
Ethical human subjects research must have an acceptable risk‐benefit ratio, which requires that the net risks participants face be proportionate to the research's social value. Yet existing scholarship does not explain what makes risks proportionate to social value. Here, I distinguish internal and...
| Publicado en: | Bioethics Vol. 40; no. 7; pp. 707 - 717 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Sep2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=196087630&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 196087630 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 02699702 6PJ jtl: Bioethics issn: 02699702 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Sep2026 vid: 40 iid: 7 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 196087630 10.1111/bioe.70109 ppf: 707 ppct: 10 formats: tig: atl: When Is Social Value Proportionate to Research Risks? aug: au: Steel, Robert affil: Clinical Center Department of Bioethics, US National Institutes of Health, Bethesda Maryland, , USA su: Human research subjects Bioethics Decision making Medical research Social values Research ethics Safety Risk assessment Institutional review boards Ethics committees COVID-19 sug: subj: Human research subjects Bioethics Decision making Medical research Social values Research ethics Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology) Safety Risk assessment Institutional review boards Ethics committees COVID-19 keyword: proportionality research ethics risk‐benefit assessment risk‐benefit ratio social value proportionality research ethics risk‐benefit assessment risk‐benefit ratio social value ab: Ethical human subjects research must have an acceptable risk‐benefit ratio, which requires that the net risks participants face be proportionate to the research's social value. Yet existing scholarship does not explain what makes risks proportionate to social value. Here, I distinguish internal and external senses of proportionality and argue that it is internal proportionality that is the proper object of IRB/REC review. I propose understanding internal proportionality in terms of a literal ratio of expected health effects; I also argue against the alternative of attempting to assess proportionality through intuitive comparisons. I illustrate the potential implications of this account through a discussion of the proposal to engage in controlled human infection studies with the novel coronavirus. This case highlights that trials with enormous numbers of potential beneficiaries can be internally proportional even when they are very unlikely to succeed. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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