Tangwa Godfrey B
University of Yaounde, Yaounde, Cameroon.
Acta Trop. 2009 Nov;112 Suppl 1:S16-20. doi: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2009.08.021. Epub 2009 Aug 20.
Some categories of human beings are particularly vulnerable vis-à-vis medical research. Vulnerability could be considered as the liability to be harmed, exploited, deceived, cheated, wronged, or otherwise unfairly treated, in roughly that descending order of importance. Vulnerable human beings obviously include the incompetent (minors and mentally handicapped adults), the desperately poor, ill or ignorant, prisoners, refugees, pregnant women, subordinates in highly authoritarian systems, etc. Vulnerability in itself does not imply that no research whatsoever should be carried out with such categories of humans but only that it should be carried out only under very special conditions. In this paper I treat of vulnerability in research of particularly developing world populations; of the types of research which exploit such vulnerability, and of why and how research subjects should be protected. The aim in this paper is to stimulate practical reflection on the possible vulnerabilities of potential research subjects that researchers or investigators need to avoid exploiting rather than on an adequate theoretical treatment of the issue.
某些人群在医学研究方面特别容易受到伤害。脆弱性可以被视为遭受伤害、剥削、欺骗、欺诈、冤屈或以其他方式受到不公平对待的可能性，大致按照重要性从高到低的顺序排列。脆弱人群显然包括无行为能力者（未成年人和成年智障者）、极度贫困者、患病者或无知者、囚犯、难民、孕妇、高度专制体系中的下属等。脆弱性本身并不意味着绝对不应针对这类人群开展任何研究，而是意味着只能在非常特殊的条件下开展研究。在本文中，我探讨了在针对特别是发展中世界人群的研究中的脆弱性；利用这种脆弱性的研究类型；以及研究对象为何应受到保护以及如何受到保护。本文的目的是激发对潜在研究对象可能存在的脆弱性进行实际思考，研究人员或调查人员需要避免利用这些脆弱性，而不是对该问题进行充分的理论探讨。
