This article is part of the network’s archive of useful research information. This article is closed to new comments due to inactivity. We welcome new content which can be done by submitting an article for review or take part in discussions in an open topic or submit a blog post to take your discussions online.
M.W. Merritt, Health Researchers’ Ancillary Care Obligations in Low-Resource Settings: How Can We Tell What Is Morally Required? Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal Vol. 21, No. 4, 311–347 © 2011
ABSTRACT
Health researchers working in low-resource settings often encounter serious unmet health needs among participants. What is the nature and extent of researchers’ obligations to respond to such needs? Competing accounts have been proposed, but there is no independent standard by which to assess them or to guide future inquiry. I propose an independent standard and demonstrate its use. In conclusion I recommend two areas of focus for future inquiry: what makes an account of researchers’ obligations reasonable from the standpoint of both participants and researchers and how general duties of rescue apply to researchers’ resource-allocation decision making in low-resource settings.
The full article can be accessed at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/kennedy_institute_of_ethics_journal/v021/21.4.merritt.html