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Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition

National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research

by Ileana Dominguez-Urban

Identification: Interdisciplinary body that formulated ethical guidelines governing the treatment of human subjects in federally funded research

Date: Established in July, 1974

Type of ethics: Bioethics

Significance: The commission was the earliest and most successful government effort to establish a basic code of ethical conduct regulating scientific inquiry

From 1966 through 1972, several revelations that reputable scientists had routinely risked the health and well-being of subjects without their knowledge eroded public confidence in science. Many incidents involved poor, institutionalized, old, military, or prison populations. Most notorious were the 1972 Tuskegee Syphilis Study revelations. For forty years, Public Health Service researchers had studied the natural course of syphilis in poor African American men from Tuskegee, Alabama; the researchers kept the men unaware of the study’s purpose, failed to treat them, even when penicillin became available, and actively prevented outside treatment. In 1974, Congress established the commission and provided that its recommendations were to be accepted by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare unless the reasons for rejecting them were made public.

The commission issued several reports, including the Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (1978), which led to the establishment of comprehensive regulations. The basic regulations require that most federally funded researchers obtain informed consent, protect confidentiality, and minimize risks to subjects. Additional safeguards were implemented from other reports to govern research on children, pregnant women, prisoners, and other special populations. The commission’s impact extends beyond directly funded research. Since institutions receiving federal funds must ensure that all research is conducted ethically, most institutions review all research under the same guidelines, which have become the accepted standard for ethical research.

See also: Bioethics; Experimentation; Medical research.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Dominguez-Urban, Ileana. "National Commission For The Protection Of Human Subjects Of Biomedical And Behavioral Research." Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition, edited by George Lucas & John K. Roth, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Ethics_0583.
APA 7th
Dominguez-Urban, I. (2019). National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. In G. Lucas & J. K. Roth (Eds.), Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Dominguez-Urban, Ileana. "National Commission For The Protection Of Human Subjects Of Biomedical And Behavioral Research." Edited by George Lucas & John K. Roth. Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2019. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.