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SARS-CoV-2 challenge studies: ethics and risk minimisation
- Source :
- Journal of Medical Ethics
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- BMJ Publishing Group, 2020.
-
Abstract
- COVID-19 poses an exceptional threat to global public health and well-being. Recognition of the need to develop effective vaccines at unprecedented speed has led to calls to accelerate research pathways ethically, including by conducting challenge studies (also known as controlled human infection studies (CHIs)) with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19). Such research is controversial, with concerns being raised about the social, legal, ethical and clinical implications of infecting healthy volunteers with SARS-CoV-2 for research purposes. Systematic risk evaluations are critical to inform assessments of the ethics of any proposed SARS-CoV-2 CHIs. Such evaluations will necessarily take place within a rapidly changing and at times contested epidemiological landscape, in which differing criteria for the ethical acceptability of research risks have been proposed. This paper critically reviews two such criteria and evaluates whether the use of effective treatment should be a necessary condition for the ethical acceptability of SARS-CoV-2 CHIs, and whether the choice of study sites should be influenced by COVID-19 incidence levels. The paper concludes that ethical evaluations of proposed SARS-CoV-2 CHIs should be informed by rigorous, consultative and holistic approaches to systematic risk assessment.
- Subjects :
- medicine.medical_specialty
Health (social science)
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
research ethics
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
education
0603 philosophy, ethics and religion
Health(social science)
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Systematic risk
Healthy volunteers
medicine
Effective treatment
Current Controversy
030212 general & internal medicine
clinical trials
Research ethics
Health Policy
Public health
06 humanities and the arts
ethics
Clinical trial
Issues, ethics and legal aspects
scientific research
Engineering ethics
060301 applied ethics
Psychology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Medical Ethics
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....36602997ae2093b6bb3e975de041ba26