Medical Research with Children as Subjects
Uploaded by boogah on Dec 16, 2005
Should medical research with children as subjects ever be carried out?
The purpose of this essay is to explore reasons affirmative to medical research on children, without deviating from legal and ethical practices on children . It will discuss in particular, reason’s why children are not little adults, the need for pediatric medicine, the benefits of therapeutic and non-therapeutic research, the difficulties of such research, and a child’s right to promotional well-being.
When it comes to medical research subjects, children are a vulnerable population and so are granted special protection from potential research risks. Researchers in pediatrics often encounter conflicts between protecting the children who are vulnerable research subjects (therapeutic research) and developing generalized knowledge to benefit children as a class (non-therapeutic research). It is also stated that benefits of medical research must clearly outweigh the risks. Many guidelines tend to shy away from non-therapeutic research, as it does not directly benefit the child, but the thin line between these types of research often inappropriately excludes children from potentially life-saving research and it withholds potentially effective therapies.
Inappropriately excluding children from research effectively denies them the right to promotional well-being. As discussed in the Otago Bioethics Report ,
..Research with children is important for the benefit of all children and should be supported, encouraged and conducted in an ethical manner. In fact, to exclude children from participating in scientifically and ethically sound research may be to deny them a basic human right, as it may impede the promotion of their health and well-being.
Current policy of Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that we are to recognize “the child has a right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health..”, and “to ensure the provision of necessary medical assistance and health care to all children with emphasis on the development of primary health care..” and lastly, “to develop preventive health care.” In order to progress in the field of pediatric medicine, children as subjects are the only way to gain understanding about how to treatment them. This can successfully be done through therapeutic and non-therapeutic research, giving the child direct benefits without undermining their rights, and providing generalized data to treat other cases that may occur.
Attempts to protect children from the risks of medical research may have the unfortunate consequence of perilously harming children by impeding research in pediatric drug...