RESEARCH ETHICS ISSUES IN BASIC AND CLINICAL STUDIES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMICS
RESEARCH ETHICS ISSUES IN BASIC AND CLINICAL STUDIES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMICS

Author(s): Zoran Todorović, Dragan Hrnčić
Subject(s): Politics, Sociology, Welfare systems, Health and medicine and law, Family and social welfare, Welfare services
Published by: Институт друштвених наука
Keywords: COVID-19; research ethics; moral responsibility; experimental drug use; public health
Summary/Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has opened many issues concerning research ethics. Initially, the focus of the investigation was directed at the origin of the virus, opening the question of moral and other responsibility for the emergence of the pandemic. The safety of medicines and vaccines has become a question for experts and the general public, and ongoing clinical trials have not removed distrust. The standards for conducting clinical trials of drugs in development were relaxed, even according to the recommendations of the World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency, which created doubts about the balance between their reliability and speed of their implementation. Redefining bioethical principles in public health research proved necessary, and easing measures against COVID-19 only softened the public debate, but still needs to resolve some research ethics issues. Conducting both basic and clinical studies unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic was also affected during this period, facing a lack of funding, changes in infrastructure and resources, and a sudden need to refocus the research. Discussions on ethical issues related to allocating available resources and the urgent need to terminate some ongoing research studies should be addressed in contemporary literature. On the other hand, the demand for rapid knowledge production to secure prompt reactions from various health system stakeholders resulted in the flexibility of the peer-review process. That opened some ethical issues related to responsible publication practice, emphasizing the role of research ethics at every single step of the COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 biomedical, basic, and clinical studies.

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