SciDev.Net

Countries should measure themselves against a set of standards to assess the integrity of their research bases, says a Nature editorial.

Disaster research can help future interventions, but urgency should never excuse exploitation of survivors, says Athula Sumathipala.

For its own international credibility, Indian science must be seen to deal with scientific misconduct, says N. Raghuram.

Public-private partnership organisations have failed to include African researchers on an equal basis, say T. J. Tucker and M. W. Makgoba.

Africa should develop its own ethical review systems, not copy foreign arrangements, say Carl H. Coleman and Marie-Charlotte Bouësseau.

Jon Cohen says extreme distrust of pharmaceutical companies detracts attention from legitimate ethical questions about clinical research.

By giving bioethics a human face, UNESCO's much-maligned Universal Declaration on Bioethics is a triumph for the developing world, says Mônica C. Serra.

Robert Grant and colleagues say that despite controversy surrounding trials of promising HIV preventive drugs, we must encourage such research rather than try to curb it.

UNESCO's declaration on bioethics and human rights is too weak to be of value, and could harm the world's poor if developing countries accept it, says Richard Ashcroft.

Researchers running clinical trials in developing countries should focus more on ethics and worry less about the incentives offered to potential participants, say Ezekiel Emanuel and colleagues.

Understanding science and its implications is a human right, argues Xiong Lei, in this perspective from China.

Treating research participants from vulnerable populations ethically means more than considering drugs' potential side-effects; researchers must also frame their work within a human rights context, argues Bebe Loff.

Stakeholders in HIV/AIDS research must interact at all stages of a clinical drug trial to avoid it becoming held up in ethical debate, say Jerome A. Singh and Edward J. Mills.

Improving standards of medical ethics worldwide requires evaluating them in developed as well as in developing countries, says Solomon R. Benatar.

Felipe Velden calls for greater scrutiny of biomedical research on Brazilian indigenous groups.

Brooks Jackson and Thomas Fleming argue that drug trials can be scientifically valid if the placebo is replaced with a drug known to be both harmless and effective.

Zulfiqar Bhutta argues that standards of care in research need to reflect local conditions, not simply follow those of the West.

Robert Gilman and Hector Garcia argue that the ethics review system for international research is unnecesarily complex and legalistic, and does not result in better protection for research particiants.

Dherain Narula, Lokesh Tiwari and Jacob Puliyel say that rotavirus vaccination trials in the developing world are exploiting the poor.

Pamela Andanda argues that a court challenge in Kenya over the conduct of trials involving a potential HIV/AIDS vaccine could bring much-needed legal order into an area that currently suffers from 'name and shame' tactics.