ABSTRACT
While the benefits of scientific research on humans have been considerable, they have also raised many ethical questions, most notably about the treatment of the people participating in the research. Public policy makers have tended to produce regulations governing the conduct of human subject research primarily in the aftermath of scandal. In the United States today, federal regulations currently apply only to research using certain types of public funds or in institutions that choose to apply them to all their activities. However, federal agencies are encouraging increased oversight for publicly and privately funded research, and some states have also begun regulating research within their boundaries. Issues such as confidentiality of protected medical information, exposure to potential risk, and access to potential benefits of vulnerable populations, adequacy and flexibility of current oversight regulations and bodies, research involving databases and the Internet, and the use of advanced technologies, have added layers of complexity to human subjects protection.
