Saturday, November 29, 2014

Harmful Research on Children


Against Harmful Research on Non-Agreeing Children.
BACKGROUND: The Code of Federal Regulations permits harmful research on children who have not agreed to participate.

QUESTION: should harmful research be allowed on non-agreeing children? Do children have the right to not agree to be research subjects? Or are their parents the sole decision makers?

DISCUSSION: pediatric research by its nature (investigation of the unknown) may result in harm to the research subjects. When children do not agree to participate, can their parents over-rule their decision? Currently, the answer to this question is "yes", however, the author of this article believes that the answer should be an unqualified "no." 

Bioethics. 2014 Sep 24;