Health research and safeguards: The South African journey

The evolution of research participant protections in South Africa

“…These efforts have been detailed in the previous issue of the series. [2,3] This article describes the SA Medical Research Council's (SAMRC's) journey in guidelines development for participant protections, the protections in the Bill of Rights of the SA Constitution [4] and the NHA, [1] and concludes SA's journey in protecting the human dignity of participants enrolled in research.…”

Exploitation of the vulnerable in research: Responses to lessons learnt in history

“…Notwithstanding the examples of Lind, Jenner and self-experimentation, which were discussed in the previous issue, [1] examples of experimental research where people with vulnerabilities have been harmed have surfaced since medieval times. While not typical of experiments of that era, in the thirteenth century, Frederick II of Germany is said to have experimented with neonates so he could obtain knowledge about the development of language in humans.…”