Beyond Regulations: Ethics in Human Subjects Research

Studies in Social Medicine

by Nancy M.P. King (Editor), Gail E. Henderson (Editor), Jane Stein (Editor)

Across a broad range of disciplines--in medicine, social science, and the humanities--researchers, scholars, teachers, and administrators increasingly are looking for new ways to approach ethical issues in research with human subjects. Questions about how relationships between funders and researchers should affect research design, for example, or whether the potential benefits of research can outweigh the importance of its subjects' interests are inadequately addressed by the prevailing, regulation-based research ethics paradigm.

This book constitutes a reexamination of research ethics. It combines case studies and commentaries by a multidisciplinary group of scholars and researchers to explore such topics as informed consent, conflict of interest, confidentiality, and research on illegal behavior. All human subjects research takes place within complex social, cultural, and political contexts, the contributors argue. Increased consideration of the relationships between researchers and their subjects, funders, and institutions within these contexts will facilitate research that is sensitive and responsible as well as scientifically fruitful.

Beyond Regulations features a keynote essay by Ruth Macklin. Other contributors are Marcela Aracena Alvarez, Jorge Balán, B. Susan Bauer, Alan F. Benjamin, Lynn Blanchard, Allan M. Brandt, J. Pat Browder, Barbara Entwisle, Sue E. Estroff, Renée C. Fox, Lara Freidenfelds, Gail E. Henderson, Nancy M. P. King, Loretta M. Kopelman, Ernest N. Kraybill, Barry M. Popkin, Silvina Ramos, Desmond K. Runyan, Jane Stein, Ronald P. Strauss, Keith A. Wailoo, and Cynthia Waszak.

279 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 26, 1999

About the author

Professor Nancy M.P. King, J.D.
Social Sciences & Health Policy, Center for Public Health Genomics, Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity, Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.