Guinea Pigs on the payroll: The ethics of paying research subjects |
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| Authors: | Trudo Lemmens Carl Elliott |
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| Institution: | 1. Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law;2. Department of Medical Genetics and Microbiology;3. and Joint Centre for Bioethics , University of Toronto , 88 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1L4 Phone: 416–9781910 Fax: 416–9781910 E-mail: trudo.lemmens@utoronto.ca.;4. Associate Professor, Center for Bioethics and Departments of Pediatrics and Philosophy , University of Minnesota |
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| Abstract: | Regulatory bodies and scholars have traditionally conceptualized biomedical research on healthy subjects in the same way as research on patients. Guidelines and regulations have portrayed payment to a healthy subject as a potential constraint, or “undue influence,”; on the subject's free consent. In this essay we suggest an alternative way of conceptualizing research on healthy subjects, which sees the basic issue not as one of undue influence but as one of justice. Healthy subjects generally enroll in research protocols not for humanitarian reasons but for the money they will receive. Many of these protocols are conducted by profit‐driven corporations. Yet current guidelines and regulations prohibit subjects from negotiating for fair payment for the risks, discomforts and inconveniences they undergo, and IRBs are not staffed adequately to monitor the subject's safety. We propose to remedy the situation by regulating payment to healthy subjects as a labor relation. |
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| Keywords: | human experimentation clinical trials medical ethics informed consent labor relations healthy volunteers research regulation research subjects |
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