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Ethics in Biomedical Research

Section edited by Beatrice Godard and Anita Ho

This section will include manuscripts that consider ethical aspects of research in biological and medical sciences, as well as ethical implications of new technologies, -omics research, and human  enhancement. Manuscripts addressing researcher behavior are also welcome in this section.

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  2. With growth of genomics research in Africa, concern has arisen about comprehension and adequacy of informed consent given the highly technical terms used in this field. We therefore decided to study whether th...

    Authors: Rasheed O. Taiwo, John Ipadeola, Temilola Yusuf, Faith Fagbohunlu, Gbemisola Jenfa, Sally N. Adebamowo and Clement A. Adebamowo

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:124

    Content type: Research article

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  3. Informed consent is an important factor in a child’s moral structure from which different types of doctor–patient relationships arise. Children’s autonomy is currently under discussion in terms of their decent...

    Authors: Anderson Díaz-Pérez, Elkin Navarro Quiroz and Dilia Esther Aparicio Marenco

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:122

    Content type: Research article

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  4. A key ethical question in genomics research relates to whether individual genetic research results should be disclosed to research participants and if so, which results are to be disclosed, by whom and when. W...

    Authors: Dimpho Ralefala, Mary Kasule, Ambroise Wonkam, Mogomotsi Matshaba and Jantina de Vries

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:112

    Content type: Research article

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  6. In the EU, clinical assessors, rapporteurs and the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use are obliged to assess the ethical aspects of a clinical development program and include major ethical flaws in ...

    Authors: Rosemarie D. L. C. Bernabe, Ghislaine J. M. W. van Thiel, Nancy S. Breekveldt, Christine C. Gispen and Johannes J. M. van Delden

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:103

    Content type: Research article

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  7. Biomedical and ethnographic studies among indigenous people are common practice in health and geographical research. Prior health research misconduct has been documented, particularly when obtaining genetic ma...

    Authors: Esteban Ortiz-Prado, Katherine Simbaña-Rivera, Lenin Gómez-Barreno, Leonardo Tamariz, Alex Lister, Juan Carlos Baca, Alegria Norris and Lila Adana-Diaz

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:100

    Content type: Research article

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  8. Informed consent is often cited as the “cornerstone” of research ethics. Its intent is that participants enter research voluntarily, with an understanding of what their participation entails. Despite agreement...

    Authors: Antonia Xu, Melissa Therese Baysari, Sophie Lena Stocker, Liang Joo Leow, Richard Osborne Day and Jane Ellen Carland

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:93

    Content type: Research article

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  9. While community engagement is increasingly promoted in global health research to improve ethical research practice, it can sometimes coerce participation and thereby compromise ethical research. This paper see...

    Authors: Deborah Nyirenda, Salla Sariola, Patricia Kingori, Bertie Squire, Chiwoza Bandawe, Michael Parker and Nicola Desmond

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:90

    Content type: Research article

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  11. A biobank is a structure which collects and manages biological samples and their associated data. The collected samples will then be made available for various uses. The sharing of those samples raised ethical...

    Authors: Ambroise Kouamé Kintossou, Mathias Kouamé N’dri, Marcelle Money, Souleymane Cissé, Simini Doumbia, Man-Koumba Soumahoro, Amadou Founzégué Coulibaly, Joseph Allico Djaman and Mireille Dosso

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:88

    Content type: Research article

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  12. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats-associated (CRISPR-Cas) technology may allow for efficient and highly targeted gene editing in single-cell embryos. This possibility brings human germl...

    Authors: Sebastian Schleidgen, Hans-Georg Dederer, Susan Sgodda, Stefan Cravcisin, Luca Lüneburg, Tobias Cantz and Thomas Heinemann

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:87

    Content type: Debate

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  13. Scientific misconduct is a prevalent phenomenon with many undesirable consequences. In Iran, no original research have been done about scientific fraud. So, this study aimed at describing a challenging researc...

    Authors: Homayoun Sadeghi-Bazargani, Leila Nikniaz and Hamid Reza Yousefi Nodeh

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:78

    Content type: Research article

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  14. Few studies have examined factors associated with willingness of people living with HIV (PLHIV) to participate in HIV treatment clinical trials in Sub-Saharan Africa. We assessed the factors associated with pa...

    Authors: Deborah Ekusai Sebatta, Godfrey Siu, Henry W. Nabeta, Godwin Anguzu, Stephen Walimbwa, Mohammed Lamorde, Badru Bukenya and Andrew Kambugu

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:77

    Content type: Research article

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  16. Biobanks provide an important foundation for genomic and personalised medicine. In order to enhance their scientific power and scope, they are increasingly becoming part of national or international networks. ...

    Authors: Lisa Dive, Christine Critchley, Margaret Otlowski, Paul Mason, Miriam Wiersma, Edwina Light, Cameron Stewart, Ian Kerridge and Wendy Lipworth

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:73

    Content type: Research article

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  17. Patient skepticism concerning medical innovations can have major consequences for current public health and may threaten future progress, which greatly relies on clinical research.

    Authors: Laurie Pahus, Carey Meredith Suehs, Laurence Halimi, Arnaud Bourdin, Pascal Chanez, Dany Jaffuel, Julie Marciano, Anne-Sophie Gamez, Isabelle Vachier and Nicolas Molinari

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:72

    Content type: Research article

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  18. Public awareness and engagement are among the main prerequisites for protecting the rights of research participants and for successful and sustainable functioning of research biobanks. The aim of our study was...

    Authors: S. Mezinska, J. Kaleja, I. Mileiko, D. Santare, V. Rovite and L. Tzivian

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:65

    Content type: Research article

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  19. The discovery of biomarkers of ageing has led to the development of predictors of impending natural death and has paved the way for personalised estimation of the risk of death in the general population. This ...

    Authors: Marie Gaille, Marco Araneda, Clément Dubost, Clémence Guillermain, Sarah Kaakai, Elise Ricadat, Nicolas Todd and Michael Rera

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:64

    Content type: Research article

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  20. Large-scale, centralized data repositories are playing a critical and unprecedented role in fostering innovative health research, leading to new opportunities as well as dilemmas for the medical sciences. Unco...

    Authors: R. Broekstra, E. L. M. Maeckelberghe, J. L. Aris-Meijer, R. P. Stolk and S. Otten

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:62

    Content type: Research article

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  21. There is growing interest in the collection, storage and reuse of biological samples for future research. Storage and future use of biological samples raise ethical concerns and questions about approaches that...

    Authors: Limbanazo Matandika, Ruby Tionenji Ngóngóla, Khama Mita, Lucinda Manda-Taylor, Kate Gooding, Daniel Mwale, Francis Masiye and Joseph Mfutso-Bengo

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:61

    Content type: Research article

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  22. Knowledge and attitude towards organ donation are critical factors influencing organ donation rate. We aimed to assess the knowledge and attitude towards organ donation in adolescents in Austria and Switzerland.

    Authors: Vanessa Stadlbauer, Christoph Zink, Paul Likar and Michael Zink

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:57

    Content type: Research article

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  23. Research codes of conduct offer guidance to researchers with respect to which values should be realized in research practices, how these values are to be realized, and what the respective responsibilities of t...

    Authors: Govert Valkenburg, Guus Dix, Joeri Tijdink and Sarah de Rijcke

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:56

    Content type: Research article

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  24. Low literacy of study participants in Sub - Saharan Africa has been associated with poor comprehension during the consenting process in research participation. The concerns in comprehension are far greater whe...

    Authors: Daima Bukini, Columba Mbekenga, Siana Nkya, Lisa Purvis, Sheryl McCurdy, Michael Parker and Julie Makani

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:48

    Content type: Research article

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  27. Despite the implementation of codes and declarations of medical research ethics, unethical behavior is still reported among researchers. Most of the medical faculties have included topics related to medical re...

    Authors: Bilal Azakir, Hassan Mobarak, Sami Al Najjar, Azza Abou El Naga and Najlaa Mashaal

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:39

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  28. People who are at elevated risk of suicide stand to benefit from internet-based interventions; however, research in this area is likely impacted by a range of ethical and practical challenges. The aim of this ...

    Authors: Eleanor Bailey, Charlotte Mühlmann, Simon Rice, Maja Nedeljkovic, Mario Alvarez-Jimenez, Lasse Sander, Alison L. Calear, Philip J. Batterham and Jo Robinson

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:37

    Content type: Research article

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  29. The European Union (EU) aims to optimize patient protection and efficiency of health-care research by harmonizing procedures across Member States. Nonetheless, further improvements are required to increase mul...

    Authors: Marjolein Timmers, Jeroen T. J. M. van Dijck, Roel P. J. van Wijk, Valerie Legrand, Ernest van Veen, Andrew I. R. Maas, David K. Menon, Giuseppe Citerio, Nino Stocchetti and Erwin J. O. Kompanje

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:36

    Content type: Research article

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  31. Partnering with patients in healthcare research now benefits from a strong rationale and is encouraged by funding agencies and research institutions. However, this new approach raises ethical issues for patien...

    Authors: Joé T. Martineau, Asma Minyaoui and Antoine Boivin

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:34

    Content type: Research article

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  32. Protecting the privacy of research participants is widely recognized as one of the standard ethical requirements for clinical research. It is unknown, however, how research professionals regard concepts of pri...

    Authors: Latifa Adarmouch, Marwan Felaefel, Robert Wachbroit and Henry Silverman

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:27

    Content type: Research article

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  34. Several jurisdictions, including Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and most recently Ireland, have a public interest or public good criterion for granting waivers of consent in biomedical research using second...

    Authors: G. Owen Schaefer, Graeme Laurie, Sumytra Menon, Alastair V. Campbell and Teck Chuan Voo

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:23

    Content type: Debate

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  37. The clinical introduction of non-invasive prenatal testing for fetal aneuploidies is currently transforming the landscape of prenatal screening in many countries. Since it is noninvasive, safe and allows the e...

    Authors: Hazar Haidar, Meredith Vanstone, Anne-Marie Laberge, Gilles Bibeau, Labib Ghulmiyyah and Vardit Ravitsky

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:15

    Content type: Research article

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  38. Human infection studies (HIS) are valuable in vaccine development. Deliberate infection, however, creates challenging questions, particularly in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) where HIS are new and et...

    Authors: Blessings M. Kapumba, Kondwani Jambo, Jamie Rylance, Markus Gmeiner, Rodrick Sambakunsi, Michael Parker, Stephen B. Gordon and Kate Gooding

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:14

    Content type: Research article

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  39. Sharing de-identified individual-level health research data is widely promoted and has many potential benefits. However there are also some potential harms, such as misuse of data and breach of participant con...

    Authors: Phaik Yeong Cheah and Jan Piasecki

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:12

    Content type: Debate

    Published on:

  41. As Next Generation Sequencing technologies are increasingly implemented in biomedical research and (translational) care, the number of study participants and patients who ask for release of their genomic raw d...

    Authors: Christoph Schickhardt, Henrike Fleischer and Eva C. Winkler

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:7

    Content type: Research article

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  42. Within the research community, it is generally accepted that consent processes for research should be culturally appropriate and tailored to the context, yet researchers continue to grapple with what valid con...

    Authors: Jennifer Ilo Van Nuil, Thi Thanh Thuy Nguyen, Thanh Nhan Le Nguyen, Van Vinh Chau Nguyen, Mary Chambers, Thi Dieu Ngan Ta, Laura Merson, Thi Phuong Dung Nguyen, Minh Tu Van Hoang, Michael Parker, Susan Bull and Evelyne Kestelyn

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:4

    Content type: Research article

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  43. Digital Pills (DP) are an innovative drug-device technology that permits to combine traditional medications with a monitoring system that automatically records data about medication adherence as well as patien...

    Authors: Andrea Martani, Lester Darryl Geneviève, Christopher Poppe, Carlo Casonato and Tenzin Wangmo

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:3

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  45. In their letter to the Editor in this issue, Kolstoe and Carpenter challenge a core aspect of our recently published case study of research approvals [BMC Medical Ethics 20:7] by arguing that we conflate resea...

    Authors: Mila Petrova and Stephen Barclay

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2019 20:101

    Content type: Correspondence

    Published on:

    The original article was published in BMC Medical Ethics 2019 20:7

    The Correspondence to this article has been published in BMC Medical Ethics 2019 20:100

    The Correspondence to this article has been published in BMC Medical Ethics 2019 20:100

  46. One important ethical issue in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) is randomisation. Relatively little is known about how participating individuals and communities understand and perceive central aspects of ra...

    Authors: Maureen Mupeta Kombe, Joseph Mumba Zulu, Charles Michelo and Ingvild F. Sandøy

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2019 20:99

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  47. People with lived experience are individuals who have first-hand experience of the medical condition(s) being considered. The value of including the viewpoints of people with lived experience in health policy,...

    Authors: Katherine Rittenbach, Candice G. Horne, Terence O’Riordan, Allison Bichel, Nicholas Mitchell, Adriana M. Fernandez Parra and Frank P. MacMaster

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2019 20:95

    Content type: Debate

    Published on:

  48. Ethical considerations play a prominent role in the protection of human subjects in clinical research. To date the disclosure of ethical protection in clinical research published in the international nursing j...

    Authors: Yanni Wu, Michelle Howarth, Chunlan Zhou, Mingyu Hu and Weilian Cong

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2019 20:94

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  49. Prehospital ambulance based research has unique ethical considerations due to urgency, time limitations and the locations involved. We sought to explore these issues through interviews with experts in this res...

    Authors: Stephanie Armstrong, Adele Langlois, Niroshan Siriwardena and Tom Quinn

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2019 20:88

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  50. Citizen science is increasingly prevalent in the biomedical sciences, including the field of human genomics. Genomic citizen science initiatives present new opportunities to engage individuals in scientific di...

    Authors: Christi J. Guerrini, Meaganne Lewellyn, Mary A. Majumder, Meredith Trejo, Isabel Canfield and Amy L. McGuire

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2019 20:84

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

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BMC Medical Ethics

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