Ethical Treatment of Participants in Research: A HIstorical Perspective

A short historical perspective from before the Nuremberg Code, to the Belmont Report, the Declaration of Helsinki, the United Nations Declaration Human Rights, Institutional Review Boards, and Global Government Oversight. Milgram's Behavioral Study and government violations of ethical treatment of research participants is examined.
This is an examination of journal articles about informed consent, deception, and important ethical questions in the history of research with human participants. Early vaccine research in Europe involving human participants reflected the values of the researchers. In America there was some debate about types of consent, psychological pain inflicted in Milgram’s behavioral research, and whether ethical research should be expected to measure up to the Nuremberg Code. Milgram and Baumrind debated with papers about the extent of psychological distress of human participants and the validity of Milgram’s findings.
To improve the protection of human participants in research the Nuremberg Code was developed and has been the most influential on researchers. The Helsinki Declaration followed and emphasized bioethics.
I review research ethics from the 1900’s to the present emphasis on Internet confidentiality. Institutional Review Boards and the Belmont Report relevance to current research is examined. Global initiatives are examined in the literature review.
Many objectives compete for the attention of researchers and sometimes may distract researchers. The important focus is on the core ethics of informed consent, non-maleficence, anonymity and confidentiality.
Researchers should seek to improve their ethical treatment of research participants and not justify lessening this virtue.
By having a clear historical understanding of the ethical issues of research with participants, improving the ethics training for the protection of human research participants should be paramount.

Informed consent is one of the tenets of ethical research with human participants. The literature and debate on accountability is discussed by scholars from the late 19th century to the 21st century. The idea of science for science’s sake at the expense of fully informed participants persists with many sponsors and researchers. Academics still do research without disclosing everything to participants.
Governments have a vested interest to protect the safety of citizens although they have often taken the opposite action. Some sponsors are tempted to get research by deception of participants. Human rights at its highest principle means informed consent and not harming any participants.
It is conceivable that governments and the professions have a duty to protect research participants.