And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 12:35:10 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Lynne Moss-Sharman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Bioethicist: genetic research isolated aboriginal communities
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Sunday, April 11, 1999
Scientist calls for ethical research
By MARK COOPER, EDMONTON SUN
Governments and the scientific community must do more to ensure research is
carried out ethically on isolated aboriginal communities, a leading
bioethicist says. While researchers are more sensitive not to exploit these
communities that recently have provided important genetic information,
Charles Weijer is concerned that protections aren't officially outlined in
Canada's new ethics research guidelines. "We missed a very important
opportunity to put these sorts of protections in our national guideline,"
said Weijer during a genetics conference this weekend at the University of
Alberta. The protections were seen in an early draft of the guideline, but
were lost in the final version of the tri-council policy statement prepared
by Canada's three major research funding councils that came out in
September of last year.
"Many researchers are simply not going to be aware of the fact
that these guidelines exist unless the issue is highlighted in our
national ethics guideline," said Weijer, a former Edmontonian,
who now is an assistant professor of medicine at Dalhousie
University in Halifax. Because of their often high proportion of certain
genetic diseases, many aboriginal communities have proven useful to
researchers who have made striking discoveries about the causes of the high
incidence of such diseases, he said. These researchers are starting to
realize the importance of giving
back to communities through such things as health benefits,
employment, needed equipment and even cash. They are also paying more
attention to community values and interests, he said. But that hasn't
always been the case.
"There have been studies in the past in which researchers
appeared one day in a community, gathered information and then
they're gone and that's the last thing the first nation's community
sees of them." That kind of research is often referred to as parachute
research, he said. "Because it's a new sensitivity I think it would be
unfair to burden researchers of the past with the label of being bad or
evil."It's just something people didn't think about 20 years ago that we
are recognizing now and I think it's a very important development.
"Ultimately I think it's going to allow us to do better research and to
research in a more ethnically sensitive way."
"Let Us Consider The Human Brain As
A Very Complex Photographic Plate"
1957 G.H. Estabrooks, Creator
of the Manchurian Candidate
born New Brunswick
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.aches-mc.org
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
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