‘Room for improvement’ in treatment of volunteers

A presidential commission set up to examine the safeguards for volunteers who participate in federally-sponsored research has concluded that while protections for human subjects’ research are sufficient to prevent the egregious abuses of the past, they could be better.

The report, “Moral Science: Protecting Participants in Human Subjects Research” by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues and published on 15 December, recommends 14 changes to better protect research subjects.