DYNA ROCHMYANINGSIH, Undark; Opinion: Genomics’ Ethical Gray Areas Are Harming the Developing World
"Various ethics guidelines on health-related research — including UNESCO’s International Declaration on Human Genetic Data and international ethical guidelines published by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences, or CIOMS, in collaboration with the World Health Organization — advise researchers to seek approval from an ethics committee in the host country. Such reviews are critical, bioethicists say, because cultural and social considerations of research ethics might vary between countries. In low-resource countries especially, ethics reviews are essential to protect the interests of participants and ensure that data are used in ways that benefit local communities.
Nowhere in Larena and Jakobsson’s paper, or in any of the subsequent publications based on the Philippines study, does the Uppsala team mention obtaining such an ethics approval in the Philippines — and Philippines officials say they never granted the team such an approval."
