Is There an Obligation to Participate in Biomedical Research?

Abstract

While there is no dearth of writing about ethical issues regarding human experimentation in the literature of bioethics, surprisingly little has been written, particularly in recent years, about the question of whether or not any type of obligation might exist to participate in medical research. Most contemporary discussions focus on the adequacies and inadequacies of informed consent in combination with institutional peer review boards in protecting the welfare of subjects against abuse by researchers. Or, to put the point more accurately, the discussion of the ethics of research involving human beings currently consists of adversarial haggling about the details of specific legal and regulatory provisions concerning exactly what research must be reviewed, who is competent to consent, who ought to do the reviewing of experimental protocols, and exactly what degree of detail makes for a truly informed consent [20].

I would like to thank Janet Caplan, Hans Jonas, Ronald Bayer, John Arras, and Anthony E. Gallo, Jr., for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay. I would also like to thank the members of the Hastings Center staff and the philosophy department at Union College for their comments and suggestions when this paper was presented as an invited address. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support of the Charles C. Culpeper Foundation in preparing this manuscript.