Children As Research Subjects Science, Ethics, and Law

Is using children as research subjects ever justified? Are there limits to such use? Does the fact that children are medically and psychosocially different from adults have implications for research? What can we learn from the history of the use and abuse of children as research subjects? Do parents have the authority to volunteer their children for research projects? How should children participate in the decision to be involved in research? How should research risks be assessed and balanced? These perplexing questions and others are addressed by a distinguished group of experts in the field of biomedical and behavioral research with children. This book adopts an integrated multidisciplinary approach which uses science, ethics, and law as guides for exploring these most difficult issues. The tension between acquiring important new knowledge and fulfilling the obligation to protect children from exploitation and harm is a recurring theme. As the first book to be devoted solely to the science, ethics, and law of research with children, it is an indispensable resource to physicians, psychologists, educators, lawyers, ethicists, Institutional Review Board members, child advocates and others involved in performing or reviewing research with children.

Michael A. Grodin, M.D., FAAP, is a Medical Ethicist, Professor of Health Law, Pediatrics, Socio-Medical Sciences and Community Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Program in Medical Ethics at Boston University Schools of Medicine, Public Health and the College of Liberal Arts. He has been Chairman of the Institutional Review Board of the Department of Health and Hospitals of the City of Boston for 10 years, and is a member of the National Committee on Bioethics of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is co-editor of The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation (Oxford, 1992)
Leonard H. Glantz, J.D., is a lawyer, Associate Director and Professor of Health Law at Boston University School of Public Health, and Professor of Socio-Medical Sciences and Community Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. Mr. Glantz was an advisor to the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research in the area of legal issues concerning research with children, and has been a member of Institutional Review Boards for 15 years.