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Science 18 August 2000:
Vol. 289. no. 5482, pp. 1142 - 1144
DOI: 10.1126/science.289.5482.1142
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Policy Forum

ETHICS:
Protecting Communities in Biomedical Research

C. Weijer* and E. J. Emanuel

Although for the last 50 years, ethicists dealing with human experimentation have focused primarily on the need to protect individual research subjects and vulnerable groups, biomedical research, especially in genetics, now requires the establishment of standards for the protection of communities. We have developed such a strategy, based on five steps. (i) Identification of community characteristics relevant to the biomedical research setting, (ii) delineation of a typology of different types of communities using these characteristics, (iii) determination of the range of possible community protections, (iv) creation of connections between particular protections and one or more community characteristics necessary for its implementation, and (v) synthesis of community characteristics and possible protections to define protections appropriate for each type of community. Depending on the particular community, consent and consultation, consultation alone, or no added protections may be required for research.

C. Weijer is at the Department of Bioethics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4H7, Canada. E. J. Emanuel is at the Department of Clinical Bioethics, Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center, Building 10, Room 1C118, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-1156, USA.

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: charles.weijer{at}dal.ca The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the NIH or U. S. Department of Health and Human Services

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E-Letters:

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Another Community in Biomedical Research to Consider
L. J. Deftos
Science Online, 19 Oct 2000 [Full text]

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)