Skip to main content
The BMJ logoLink to The BMJ
. 1995 May 20;310(6990):1313–1315. doi: 10.1136/bmj.310.6990.1313

Publication: an ethical imperative.

J Pearn 1
PMCID: PMC2549684  PMID: 7773049

Abstract

Publication of medical research is both a monitor of the researcher's ethics and an audit of the local or regional ethics committee that approved it. Selectivity of publication or of the intention to publish lessens this audit. Opinions differ about what is ethically allowable in clinical and benchtop medical research. Ethical permission and ethical monitoring of medical research are subject to a hierarchy of pyramidal controls, starting in hospital and ending with the local, institutional, or regional ethics committee. Currently, such committees function with widely varying degrees of efficiency and quality of output, and with differing viewpoints on many ethical issues. Without an a priori insistence by institutional ethics committees that there be an intention to publish all medical research involving human subjects, ethics committees cannot routinely be subject to the scrutiny or audit which they themselves demand of researchers.

Full text

PDF
1313

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Altman L., Melcher L. Fraud in science. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed) 1983 Jun 25;286(6383):2003–2006. doi: 10.1136/bmj.286.6383.2003. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Goldwater P. N., Martin A. J., Ryan B., Morris S., Thompson J., Kok T. W., Burrell C. J. A survey of nosocomial respiratory viral infections in a children's hospital: occult respiratory infection in patients admitted during an epidemic season. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 1991 Apr;12(4):231–238. doi: 10.1086/646330. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Komesaroff P. A. Ethics and clinical medicine. Aust N Z J Med. 1993 Feb;23(1):3–5. doi: 10.1111/j.1445-5994.1993.tb00529.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Moran J. Local research ethics committees. Report of the 2nd National Conference. J R Coll Physicians Lond. 1992 Oct;26(4):423–431. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Pearn J. H. Patients' subjective interpretation of risks offered in genetic counselling. J Med Genet. 1973 Jun;10(2):129–134. doi: 10.1136/jmg.10.2.129. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Pearn J. H. The child and clinical research. Lancet. 1984 Sep 1;2(8401):510–512. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(84)92578-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Scolaro M., Durham R., Pieczenik G. Potential molecular competitor for HIV. Lancet. 1991 Mar 23;337(8743):731–732. doi: 10.1016/0140-6736(91)90312-d. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Wells F. O. Good clinical research practice in Europe. J R Coll Physicians Lond. 1991 Oct;25(4):329–329. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from BMJ : British Medical Journal are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES