Minimizing Risks Is Not Enough: The Relevance of Benefits to Protecting Research Participants

Forty years ago, the Belmont Report counseled that a “systematic, nonarbitrary analysis of risks and benefits” is vital to ensuring the ethical appropriateness of research with human subjects. Since then, research ethics has devoted considerable attention to the first half of this advice, emphasizing the ethical importance of assessing and minimizing the risks of research with human subjects. Significantly less attention has been devoted to a systematic assessment of the potential benefits of research participation. To the extent that benefits for individual participants are considered at all, commentators tend to focus on their potential to undermine the goal of minimizing risks. A chance for clinical benefit may obscure the fact that research poses risks not present in clinical care, while an offer of financial compensation or ancillary care may induce individuals to accept risks that conflict with their long-term interests. This article argues that, while undoubtedly important, minimizing risks fails to offer sufficient protection for research participants, especially those who cannot consent, because it neither ensures that the risks of research are justified nor protects participants from exploitation. Belmont’s advice to develop systematic and nonarbitrary ways to ensure that research participants receive appropriate benefits needs to be heeded as well.