Question

Application Exercises 1. In 1979, the Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. (HHS 1979) was published. This report identifies three basic ethical principles that underlie all human subject research. What are they and explain why they are important in human subject research?

Answer 1

Three basic ethical principles were identified by the Belmont Report which mainly focuses on conducting the research having the participation of human beings. These three principles are as below:-

Respect for persons

Beneficence

Justice

Respect for persons:- This mainly deals with the dignity of an individual and his or her autonomy. This provides the special protection to those individuals who have diminished autonomy. This lays down the foundation for the informed consent and respecting the privacy of participants.

Beneficence:- It can be treated as an obligation to prove the maximum protection to the individual from any kind of harm by providing the maximum anticipated benefits and reducing the possibility of any harm to its minimum level.

Justice:- It ensures that there will be a free and fair selection of participants i..e it helps in having an equitable participation of the individuals. While conducting the research, no extra burden should be imposed one specific population by the researcher with no additional anticipated advantages to any population to just because of easy access to a certain population, unfair target to the population must be avoided. Thus this rule promotes the application of superior rules for inclusion or exclusion of population while conducting the research.