The blog of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues

Posts in category: Human Subjects Protection

Commission’s “Moral Science” Report Making an Impact

Less than a year after its release, the Commission’s report, Moral Science: Protecting Participants in Human Subjects Research, is having a noteworthy impact in the research community.  Recently, stakeholders have taken concrete steps to implement two of the Commission’s recommendations, namely, those concerning accountability through public access and promoting community engagement. As part of its [...]

Tools for Studying the Infamous Guatemala STD Research

By now the story of Susan Reverby’s discovery of John Cutler’s papers is well known. In 2010, she revealed details of the Guatemala studies from the Public Health Service (PHS) doctor’s files, triggering an avalanche of media attention.  President Obama apologized to the President of Guatemala, and then directed the Presidential Commission for the Study [...]

Compensation Expert Addresses Commission

In the course of its review of current human subjects research protections, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues asked an international panel of experts to advise them on how the current system might be improved.  One of the recommendations of the international panel was that the U.S. government “should implement a system [...]

Commission Calls for Transparency in U.S. Government-Funded Research

As the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues continued its assessment of current protections for human subjects in research at its public meeting in Boston this afternoon, Commission member, Christine Grady, proposed that the Commission recommend improving transparency in U.S. Government-funded research.  Grady said that federal agencies could develop systems – or improve [...]

Commission Work Will Dovetail Nicely with HHS’ ANPRM

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues today discussed how its current work assessing the contemporary rules and regulations that protect human subjects in research will nicely dovetail with the Department of Health and Human Service’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM), which was released last summer. The ANPRM is entitled “Human Subjects Research Protections: Enhancing Protections for Research Subjects [...]

Putting Ethics in Action – What Role do Professional Standards Play?

Following the revelation that the U.S. Public Health Service conducted unethical research on STDs in Guatemala in the 1940s, President Obama charged the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to conduct “a thorough review of human subjects protection to determine if Federal regulations and international standards adequately guard the health and well-being of [...]

Ethically Impossible

From 1946-1948, a team of medical researchers in the United States Public Health Service intentionally infected more than 1,300 Guatemalan prison inmates, psychiatric patients, commercial sex workers and soldiers with sexually transmitted diseases. The team also used children in diagnostic testing. Done completely without consent, their experiments resulted in a living hell for many of [...]

The scars of research done poorly

For much of the meeting, a discussion around protection of human subjects in scientific research was abstract. It became tangible today when Carletta Tilousi, member of the Havasupai Tribal Council in Supai, Arizona, told the story of a diabetes research study involving her tribe to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. The [...]

Commission builds database of scientific trials

One basic issue in today’s federally funded research involving human subjects around the world: There’s no single database. Dr. Amy Gutmann, President of the University of Pennsylvania and Chair of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, noted the absence of a database during the second day of meetings, which are examining the [...]

Panel recommends compensation for research injuries

An international expert panel today issued five recommendations to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues on the effectiveness of current federal rules and international standards for research involving human subjects. One of the five was a recommendation that the U.S. government should implement a system to compensate research subjects for research-related injuries. [...]