PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Robert C Hughes
TI  - Individual risk and community benefit in international research
AID  - 10.1136/medethics-2011-100171
DP  - 2012 Jan 01
TA  - Journal of Medical Ethics
PG  - medethics-2011-100171
4099  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/05/04/medethics-2011-100171.short
4100  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/05/04/medethics-2011-100171.full
AB  - It is widely agreed that medical researchers who conduct studies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are morally required to ensure that their research benefits the broader host community, not only the subjects. The justification for this moral requirement has not been adequately examined. Most attempts to justify this requirement focus on researchers' interaction with the community as a whole, not on their relationship with their subjects. This paper argues that in some cases, research must benefit the broader host community for researchers to treat subjects and prospective subjects ethically. If research presents substantial net risks to subjects, researchers can ethically ask LMIC citizens to participate only if people in LMICs, normally including people in the host community, stand to benefit.