Title
Lessons from Everyday Lives: A Moral Justification for Acute Care Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-2002
Source
Critical Care Medicine
Volume
30
Issue
5
First Page
1146
Last Page
1151
Abstract
Progress in emergency and critical care requires that clinical research be performed on patients who are incapable of granting consent for research participation. Analyses of the ethics of such research have left some questions incompletely answered. Why should we be permitted to expose vulnerable patients to research risks without their consent? In particular, how do we justify research interventions that have no potential benefit for participants (nontherapeutic interventions)? This article presents a moral justification for nontherapeutic interventions in emergency research. By relying on a framework for assessing research risks, and by drawing on the example of pediatric research, this justification is founded in how institutional review boards, and society in general, analyze risk. Our justification for emergency research also suggests additional protections for emergency research participants, including a stringent threshold for research risk, that still permit important research to proceed.
Notes
Dr. Charles Weijer is currently a faculty member at The University of Western Ontario.