[A welcome guide for evaluating medical research involving human subjects].

In 1999, the Dutch Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act came into force. The principal aim of this Act is to provide protection for human subjects who take part in medical research. Medical research involving human subjects may only be carried out after it has been approved by a recognised medical ethics committee. A central committee (Dutch acronym: CCMO) regulates the recognition of the local medical ethics committees and monitors their performance. For some types of research the protocol has to be reviewed by the CCMO itself. These are: non-therapeutic research involving children and mentally incompetent patients and research on gene therapy, xenotransplantation and embryos. The CCMO has recently published a guide for the local medical ethics committees. It presents an excellent overview of all the legal and practical aspects of the work of medical ethics committees. The guide is highly recommended.