Example Of Human Subjects Essay

The role of Institutional Review Board in US and Canada Review Ethics Board cannot be overemphasized since without them, human subjects may be mistreated by the researchers as they take part in research projects. This mistreatment of the human subjects in research is presented in the 3 cases under study. The aim of these review boards is to ensure researchers uphold all basic ethical principles when they are dealing with human subjects. These 3 basic ethical principles include respect for persons, beneficiary and justice. In the case one, doctors went against the principle of self consent by conducting a research without first seeking permission of the human subjects that were involved in the research. They infected Guatemala soldiers, prisoners, mental patients and prostitutes with syphilis and other STDs without seeking their consent. They treated a large portion of their subjects with antibiotics that resulted to deaths of at least 83 participants. According to the review board regulations, the researcher must seek informed consent of each subject. The informed consent involves informing the participants that their participation in the study is voluntary and ensures they are informed about every aspect of the intended research. Secondly, the participants in the study were not protected from any harm as required by the IRBs. According to the second ethical principle of the boards, researcher must ensure human subjects participating in the research are protected from any harm and the benefits of the study are maximized and harms are minimized. Using antibiotics was not adequate measure to ensure participants in the research were not harmed. This explains why 83 of the participants had to die due to negligence of the second principle. In the case two, researchers failed to uphold the principle of respect for persons that requires individuals to be handled as autonomous agents, and those with diminished autonomy to be protected. The remains of about 200 Ontario’s original inhabitants were improperly gathered without permission of those in charge. Even if the bones were over 500 years old, they deserved to be treated with dignity and respect just like they were alive since they belonged to human subjects. The first Nation People needed to be consulted before interfering with the remains of those human subjects. In the case five, Neel had good intention to immunize the people of Yanomami against possible outbreak of measles. However, he never took the necessary measures to protect participants from harm as required by IRBs. He never used immune gamma globulin to reduce adverse effects of the vaccination. All the three case studies show why IRBs should compel researchers to follow all the basic ethical principles when they are using human subjects in their study. Therefore, the IRBs should enforce the ethical principles of respect for persons, beneficiary and justice, since in doing so, it will ensure that researchers do not abuse human subjects, but instead they promote positive benefits of research to the community.
However, there is a need for the IRBs to ensure they do not interfere with the freedom of researchers when reviewing their applications. As presented in the case four, sometime IRBs may derail or delay a project in the name of reviewing ethical principle adherence resulting to interfering with the freedom of the researcher. Such actions may be illegal and unethical given that the board should promote more researches that are upholding the established ethical principles. It should be objective and not refuse to approve a project on the basis of other irrelevant matters such as spelling mistake.