Abstract
The present account views the ethical challenges pertaining to clinical research in resource-poor settings from the vantage point of the history of biomedical research ethics, emphasizing crucial achievements and lost opportunities in this history of relevance for assessing the current situation of clinical research in such settings. In addition, the impact of the global spread of the neoliberal market model on the conception and organization of biomedical research is analyzed, with particular emphasis on its implications for the way clinical research is conducted and its role in outsourcing clinical research to poor and low-income countries. Furthermore, the need for implementing comparative measures able to reflect the level of human development in a more fine-tuned way than which is possible by applying the gross national product (GNP) per capita criterion is suggested. Likewise, situations of special vulnerability necessary to observe when conducting clinical research in resource-poor settings are highlighted, and it is suggested to make use of the capabilities approach to human development and human poverty to critically address the issues of exploitation, benefits, and needs in clinical research in resource-poor settings. The analyses here provided and the message conveyed is that it is in the power of democratic states in the most affluent parts of the world to take the necessary steps to enable millions of people suffering from treatable diseases to be involved in just forms of biomedical research, to access essential medicines, and to reach a level of human development enabling them to freely chose their way of fulfilling their human capabilities.
The author, Susana María Vidal, is responsible for the selection, interpretation and presentation of the facts contained in this publication and for the opinions expressed herein, which are not necessarily those of the organization she works for and do not commit it in any way. The author declares that she has no conflict of in terests.
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Solbakk, J.H., Vidal, S.M. (2014). Clinical Research in Resource-poor Settings. In: ten Have, H., Gordijn, B. (eds) Handbook of Global Bioethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2512-6_102
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