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Clinical Trials and the Collective Ethic: The Case of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis

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Social Science Perspectives on Medical Ethics

Part of the book series: Culture, Illness, and Healing ((CIHE,volume 16))

Abstract

The ethical basis of medical experimentation on human subjects is an issue at the core of bioethics. In such experimentation the balance between individual and collective rights, and in particular the balance between physicians’ therapeutic obligation to their patients — the individual ethic (Clayton 1982), and their duty to further scientific knowledge for the collective good — the collective ethic (Lellouch and Schwartz 1971), has become an issue of major importance. Much of the debate about this issue has now been focused on the ethical status and role of the clinical trial in modern scientific medicine.

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Authors
  1. Ian Robinson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Humanities and Social Studies in Medicine, McGill University, 3655 Drummond Street, Room 416, Montreal, PQ, H3G 1Y6, Canada

    George Weisz

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© 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Robinson, I. (1990). Clinical Trials and the Collective Ethic: The Case of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. In: Weisz, G. (eds) Social Science Perspectives on Medical Ethics. Culture, Illness, and Healing, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1930-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1930-3_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7361-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-1930-3

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