By failing to follow informed consent protocols and regulations, a researcher engaging in CBPR may inflict permanent harm on the participating community and chill future research among disadvantaged populations.
Is it ethical to create and advertise, either publicly or during office visits, package deals that offer patients an incentive to have procedures they are not already seeking and might not have considered?
Within the patient-physician relationship, the request for neuroenhancement becomes a chief concern, and the physician has a duty to take a history and perform a physical exam to determine whether the patient’s current level of function represents significant change.
Assigning community based on race suggests that phenotype reveals something consistent about biology that is equal in standing to factors like weight, dietary habits, smoking history, and whether or not you had rheumatic fever as a child.
CBP researchers are challenged to think strategically about ways to convey their accomplishments and educate their non-CBPR peers about the nature of their research, processes not required of traditional researchers.
Elizabeth Lee Daugherty, MD, MPH and Douglas B. White, MD, MA
Opportunities to advance scientific knowledge may arise during humanitarian crises, but their presence does not justify suspension of the ethical foundations governing human subjects research.
Research is needed to understand mental health effects of cancer at diagnosis, throughout treatment and the post-treatment phases, and in survivorship.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(5):486-492. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.5.msoc2-1705.
Some question whether plastic surgeons bear responsibility for promoting suspect norms of beauty, given that certain types of cosmetic enhancements reinforce common conceptions of normality that are harmful to society.