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The Human Factor: Globalizing Ethical Standards In Drug Trials Through Market Exclusion, Fazal Khan

Scholarly Works

Given the tremendous financial reward that a blockbuster therapy might generate, there are strong incentives to move drug research and development to developing countries, which have minimal ethical guidelines and little transparency. The danger in this race for the prize--or for the bottom--is the exploitation of subaltern populations that have little legal recourse to hold drug companies accountable for the harm that those populations suffer as a result of unethical clinical trials. In other words, the drug industry is acutely aware that there is a minimal threat of costly civil suits and criminal sanctions for their ethical violations in impoverished …