Good Essay On Anthropology: Regulation Of Researches With Human Subjects

Research regulation in the United States and Canada should be done so as to put down laws regulating both public and privately sponsored medical research with human subjects. Such regulations should help limit violation of human rights in research and at the same time giving researchers the jurisdiction to carry out their work within the law.Research guarantees a better tomorrow, however, most researchers have continuously ignored their subject's well-being ignoring the society that funds the research. The thirst to get results have made researchers forget basics in ethics while dealing with human subjects. The STD Research in Guatemala report made it clear that the US research made ethical violations in a conscious way in the Guatemala research on syphilis where they injected soldiers, prostitutes and prisoners with syphilis and other STI's.The society should strike a balance between civic engagement and active citizenship. The society provides the subjects, and it consumes the research results. The society is made up of its culture and interfering with it would be to be to violate their rights. In case two: studying of bones, the Huron-Wendat people believe that bones are sacred and hence they should not be "stolen" from the Poole-Rose ossuary for research purposes. I suggest that in dealing with such cultural heritage matters the government should contact the closest relatives, the cultural leaders and elders to strike a balance and allow research to be undertaken for the benefit of the larger society.Trustworthiness of researchers should be clarified using physical examination and experimental follow up of the researchers to determine their true intentions rather than just checking their documents that could have minor spelling or typing errors.
Regulatory bodies should send their personnel to progressively assess the research and review it. Regulating bodies such as the Institutional Review Boards (in the U.S.) And Review Ethics Boards (in Canada) have locked out many researchers with legitimate work. Experience of the law is a result of how the people enact it, how the judicially apply the rules that affect science, therefore, affect their judgment between the good and the bad. Laura Stark, discusses that IRB searches for the researchers trustworthiness in their written documents to know whether they are careful not to make mistakes in their studies. Consistency should also be enforced in interpreting the law, a single case should not receive different responses from different IRBs. Harmonization of interpretation of the law regarding good and bad should be done to ensure fairness to researchers.The regulatory bodies should not also, therefore, tie the hand of researcher with minor reasons, if a cure for the condition is not discovered today than the disease will kill millions tomorrow.The "do not harm" principle in medicine is ambiguous because action and inaction both lead to different consequences. Experiments that could result into permanent harm or death of patients should not be undertaken on human subjects, rather suitable animal subjects can be used, and the results extrapolated to the human case. Allowing researchers too much freedom would be pronouncing disaster to the human subjects in their research. Researchers desire to use ready-made ‘laboratory' make them not consider humanitarian aspect of their profession. The case on aboriginal experiments shows that the researcher was unfair to the malnutrition victims. Instead of recommending government support after the first experiment they decided to use the victims as their subjects for another test on the effects of different diets. Research showing suffering of human subjects should be accorded the necessary government support and the research should be stopped until when the subjects would be fit health wise. Researchers should sign legal documents binding them to keep change details to protect their subject's identity. Researchers should handle their subjects within the legal, cultural and ethical framework of the larger society. A case where researchers administered an enriched flour which couldn't be legally sold in Canada to children was a breach of the law. Ethically some experiments should not be allowed, such as discussing sexuality with people under the age of eighteen years. This, however, could be possible if the researchers are asked not to ask certain questions or expose the young people to certain sexual situations in their research. His law can define the words, signs and actions that should be avoided in such a study. The government should evaluate the experiment to see whether the researches are helping or harming the people involved in the research. Cultural interpretation of the society beliefs into law should be conducted because experimental and cultural powers and study methods do not match. For example, the determination of who is mentally sound. There should be a clear line of where culture stops and where the law over. What the Ontario Cemeteries Act deemed as very old bones was culturally still possessing a soul and was, therefore, not disposable. This should be done by a committee of lawyers together with elders and cultural studies experts which should make their recommendations to the government for consideration of passing into law.The law is like a double edged sword; it cuts both ways. With proper research on the people and their requirements it's possible to end oppression of human subjects, bind subjects to act according to their contacts and give researchers the required freedom to deliver well-founded research. The society should uphold the law by advocating for respect of Persons, beneficence and Justice for everyone.