Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Duty To Exclude: Excluding People At Undue Risk From Research, Charles Weijer, Abraham Fuks

Charles Weijer

The clinical trial is the major investigational tool of clinical medicine. Two recent reports highlight the fact that the most often quoted mechanisms for the protection of research subjects, viz., research ethics board review and eligibility criteria, are insufficient to achieve this end. In this paper, we argue that the prime mechanism for the protection of persons in clinical trials should be the clinical judgement of the physician-investigator. The clinical investigator has a duty to protect subjects from both harm and undue risk. It is argued that the clinical investigator has a duty to screen for, and exclude, potential research …