Despite a tendency to react otherwise, there is no obvious reason to believe that economically disadvantaged people ought not to be exposed to the same levels of research risk as the rest of the population.
Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MD, MA and Ruth R. Faden, PhD, MPH
Participation in a research study—in which there are rigorous standards and close monitoring—may be a safer context for the use of medications in pregnancy than the clinical setting, where the evidence base is lacking.
This process of developing EBM-based guidelines and applying them to clinical care highlights the tension between generating unbiased knowledge based on statistical aggregation and the application of this information to individual patients.
Elderly persons should not be excluded from participation in clinical trials for cardiovascular drugs since that population comprises the largest number of patients with cardiovascular disease.
Comparative effectiveness research (CER) may become an important factor in Medicare coverage decisions, and the new health care law may make it more easily available to the public to help in medical decision making.
In “Ethics of International Research: What Does Responsiveness Mean?” Christine Grady explains how developing countries are vulnerable to exploitation by researchers and explores what “responsiveness” to the needs of those populations might entail.
Strengthened NIH policies of inclusion have resulted in more NIH-funded research including more women and other underrepresented population groups as subjects in medical research.