ETHICAL ISSUES IN COLLABORATIVE INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL RESEARCH

Global distribution of diseases in recent years has shown that health problems are no longer limited to the geographical borders of a country but are a global. Establishing international research collaboration has been highlighted as an appropriate strategy for confronting health problems. The possibility of exploitation of human subjects and also research capacity in developing countries particularly by pharmaceutical companies has caused concerns about the nature of such kind of research collaborations. In many countries general ethical guidelines help researchers and ethics committees to deal with the issue. However lack of expertise in general as well as ethical guidelines to address externally-sponsored research in particular, exposed human subjects to greater harm and has ignored ways of guarantying their benefits. Methods and In view of experiences of clinical trials which have been conducted in Africa and Asia by developed countries, this paper focuses attention of researchers and health policy makers on externally-sponsored researches. By reviewing the international ethical guidelines, the paper argues for the development of national ethical guidelines in order to protect human subjects as well as national interests.