Institutional Review Board

1.  What experiments lead to the creation of the National Research Act?

Experiments that lead to the creation of the National Research Act were: the Tuskegee Syphilis Study as well as studies that occurred during the Nazi regime in Germany. The National Research Act moved to protect the rights of humans during their participation in scientific studies.

2. What are the three guiding principles of the Belmont Report?

• Respect for people
• Beneficence
• Justice

3. Good ethics begins with good medicine?  Do you agree and why?

I believe that all medicine has the potential to be both good an bad, the use of ethics determine how they are used. If used in moderation and for the specific purpose, you then have both good medicine and good ethics.You would have to have good ethics in order to create good medicine, but also you would have to have good medicine to be implemented with good ethics. 

4. Why do certain groups need additional protection?

Certain groups need additional protection because, for whatever reason specific to each individual group, the people in that cohort are not able to vocalize their concerns for heir rights. Maybe that group does not know that they are at risk of having specific rights infringed upon, or they are not taken seriously when they are expressing concern about their treatment.

5. Are there other groups that should be included?

Groups that should be included are generally universal, such as women, ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ community, and the elderly. Depending on what country's perspective you are considering these cohorts, the issues surrounding them are different. In America, women need support for efforts that advocate things such as equal wages, while in other countries, women are still struggling for the right to receive an education.

6. If you had to add one guiding principle to the Belmont Report what would it be?  Why?

If I had to add one guiding principle to the Belmont Report, it would be to advocate awareness for the reasoning why there are limits imposed on how you could utilize one group. It is easy to say "no, you cannot test this group because it violates something," but it is also just as important to make sure that it is known why someone should not do these things. They are not just rules imposed to make their research harder, they are meaning to protect a group before their rights are being abused and knowledge of these reasons are important.