Is Acute Care-Oriented Research Ethical in Resource-Limited Settings?

Anwar D Jackson, Harold W Neighbors

In this case scenario, a medical student, Jenny, is conducting congenital heart disease research in a resource-limited setting faced with water insecurity. She has concerns about how ethical it is for her to conduct advanced clinical research in a region with more basic health needs. The first commentary argues that advanced clinical research in resource-limited settings follows the ethical principle of beneficence and interactional justice but violates the principle of distributive justice. The second commentary questions whether beneficence is enough, since the Belmont Report states that beneficence is the obligation to simultaneously reduce harm and increase benefit. It calls upon public health physician-scientists to think deeply about how to involve communities in their research-and how to insert themselves into health policy development processes.