In theory at least, study participants are supposed to be true volunteers, taking part in research of their own free will.īut in 1918, such ethical arguments were rarely considered. Now, more than eighty years after the 1918 flu, people enter studies for several reasons-to get free medical care, to get an experimental drug that, they hope, might cure them of a disease like cancer or AIDS, or to help further scientific knowledge. Although they can award small cash payments to research subjects, they are forbidden from giving anyone so much money or such tempting favors that their compensations might constitute what ethicists term an inappropriate inducement, an irresistible temptation to join the study. Medical scientists cannot offer inducements like pardons to persuade prisoners to take part in their studies.
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