Opinion: The abrupt end of USAID-funded clinical trials is profoundly unethical
USAID's stop-work order threatens to undo decades of progress in medical research ethics and cause harm to clinical trial participants.
The path from the atrocities of Nuremberg and Tuskegee to today’s robust ethics of medical research has not been easy.
In response to these horrific events, a remarkable global consensus emerged, across countries in very different parts of the world and with very different types of governments: Medical researchers, and the institutions and companies who fund their work, are bound by a series of ethical obligations. These obligations are designed to protect and respect the interests of people who participate in their research. They include minimizing foreseeable harms to participants and keeping the promises that researchers make to study volunteers.
