12 Aug The Belmont Report was written to respond to the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study whereby African Americans with syphilis were lied to and were consequently denied treatment for 40 years

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1- The Belmont Report was written to respond to the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study whereby African Americans with syphilis were lied to and were consequently denied treatment for 40 years. Consequently, many of them died, infected others with the disease, and passed congenital syphilis to their kids (Adashi, Walters & Menikoff, 2018). The report, therefore, marks a crucial milestone in the history of clinical research since it establishes guidelines for basic ethical principles, as well as the concept of informed consent, and the assessment of benefits and risks to the subject selection process. Following the Tuskegee study, Congress acted accordingly and passed the National Research Act which created a commission for the protection of human subjects who are involved in behavioral and biomedical research. The Belmont Report, therefore, outlines the three key ethical principles that were concluded by the commission to guide research involving humans (Adashi, Walters & Menikoff, 2018).

One of the basic ethical principles from the Belmont Report is respect for persons. The Belmont Report states that respect for persons comprises of at least two ethical convictions. The first conviction is that individuals must be treated as autonomous agents, and secondly, that persons who have diminished autonomy are entitled to protection (Adashi, Walters & Menikoff, 2018). As such, this principle divides into two moral requirements when conducting research involving humans: the requirement that researchers should respect the autonomy and the requirement that those with diminished autonomy should be protected. Additionally, the report goes on to describe the autonomous person as the individual who is capable of deliberating about personal goals and then acting under the direction of the established deliberation. The people involved in the research must therefore be allowed to make choices, develop opinions, and act they want to (Adashi, Walters & Menikoff, 2018).

2- Respect of persons, beneficence, and justice are three basic principles that the Belmont Report talk about, these are particularly relevant to research that involves human subjects. Prior to the current era, disease removes people from the community of equals, diminishes their autonomy, and obligated physicians to take responsibility for the treatments that they provided (Cassell, 2000). This meant that when a human needed to go to the hospital, because of a disease or sickness, people where not considered human beings, now they were just a person that could be harmed and even wronged. To the point where physician withheld information and even lied to the patients about their condition.

This began to disappear as times progressed, and today thanks to the Belmont Report we have the principle of Respect for Person. This principle has two ethical beliefs. The first one is the right to autonomy for individuals, the second one is the right to protection for individuals with diminished autonomy. This means that each person or human being has the right to choose and make decision on their own, and that people with any kind of disability will be protected. This principle reaches to the core of humanity, because it gives the person the autonomy to make decisions for themselves, and protection for those who cannot make decisions. This is a beautiful principle, it is pure freedom.

3-The Belmont Report birthed the three ethical principles that the commission concluded in human research. Among the principles is justice. According to Adashi et al. (2018), with this principle, all the human subjects in research should be treated equally during the study and the research recruitment stage. In this respect, the subjects should not be selected based on a preexisting model of selection, including on race, ethnicity, or tribe. This is important in giving an equal platform for all the clinical participants to participate in the study.

In some cases, the investigators could apply biased grounds when selecting research subjects. For instance, during clinical trials, all people of all social classes should be represented and equally treated without bias. This should form the primary ethical framework for all researchers today and in the future.