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Patients, doctors and experimentation: doubts about the Declaration of Helsinki
Insights
The Declaration of Helsinki
Area of Science:
- Bioethics
- Medical Research Ethics
- Clinical Research
Background:
- The Declaration of Helsinki provides ethical guidelines for human biomedical research.
- It distinguishes between clinical research with patient care and non-clinical research.
- Current guidelines mandate different physician roles based on research type.
Purpose of the Study:
- To challenge the distinction between a patient's own doctor and other doctors in research.
- To propose an alternative conception of the patient-doctor relationship in research.
- To provide a new ethical justification for using patients in research, drawing on Hans Jonas.
Main Methods:
- Critical analysis of the Declaration of Helsinki's distinctions.
- Philosophical examination of the patient-doctor relationship.
- Application of Hans Jonas' ethical framework to research involving human subjects.
Main Results:
- The distinction between 'own doctor' and 'other doctors' in research is found to be ethically problematic.
- An alternative patient-doctor relationship model is proposed.
- This alternative model offers a new justification for patient involvement in research.
Conclusions:
- The proposed alternative patient-doctor relationship aligns better with Hippocratic ethical principles.
- Revisiting the patient-doctor dynamic is crucial for ethical biomedical research.
- The political dimension of the patient-doctor relationship warrants further ethical consideration.
Abstract:
The World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki offers guidelines to doctors engaged in biomedical research with human subjects. The fundamental distinction of the Declaration is between clinical research combined with professional care and non-clinical scientific research. If hospital patients are the experimental subjects, then the former research must be carried out by the patient's own doctor, whereas the latter research must not be; it must be carried out by other doctors. The relevance of the distinction between the patient's own doctor and other doctors is challenged and an alternative conception of the patient-doctor relationship is drawn, together with an alternative justification, based on the work of Hans Jonas, of the use of patients in research. Finally, the political nature of the patient-doctor relationship is mentioned, and it is claimed that the alternative conception of this relationship developed in the paper is more in line with the ethical principles of the Hippocratic tradition.