PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - McMillan, John TI - Coercive offers and research participation: a comment on Wertheimer and Miller AID - 10.1136/jme.2010.035931 DP - 2010 Jul 01 TA - Journal of Medical Ethics PG - 383--384 VI - 36 IP - 7 4099 - http://jme.bmj.com/content/36/7/383.short 4100 - http://jme.bmj.com/content/36/7/383.full SO - J Med Ethics2010 Jul 01; 36 AB - Concepts such as ‘coercion’ and ‘inducement’ are often used within bioethics without much reflection upon what they mean. This is particularly so in research ethics where they are assumed to imply that payment for research participation is unethical. Wertheimer and Miller advance our thinking about these concepts and research ethics in a significant way, specifically by questioning the possibility of genuine offers ever being coercive. This commentary argues that they are right to question this assumption, however, more needs to be said about the plausible coercive offer cases and to explain the normativity of these cases.