[Clinical research XXIV. From clinical judgment to ethics in research on humans]

Bioethics in research is an essential part of the structured review process of an article and it is based on three fundamental principles: respect for persons, beneficence and justice. In addition to not providing valid knowledge, a research with inadequate design, execution and statistical analysis is not ethical either, since these methodological deficiencies will produce information that will not be useful and, therefore, the risks that the participants were exposed to will have been in vain. Beyond scientific validity, there are other aspects that outline if an investigation is ethical, such as the clinical and social value of a study, a fair selection of participants, favorable risk-benefit balance, an independent review, the informed consent and respect for participants and potential participants. Throughout the article here presented, the documents that profile the behavior of investigators to protect the participants, such as the Declaration of Helsinki, the national regulations that rule us and the differences between research without risk, with minimal risk and with greater than minimal risk are discussed. That like in daily life, behavior in research involving human participants must be self-regulated, ie, people with knowledge of the existence of the law discover that the man is outside the realm of nature where work is done under the necessity of natural causality, and falls within the scope of the will; only if the man is free to decide their actions may be a law regulating their action.