Summary: The article examines a proposed increase in government authority over research misconduct proceedings and notes that academic and medical institutions should understand the public, political, and ethical pressures on the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to enhance oversight of research integrity. Institutions can alleviate some of these pressures by making their research misconduct processes more exacting, efficient, and, when possible, more transparent regarding the outcomes of specific cases. This can lead to improved public trust in the scientific research enterprise.
Published in: The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics
Summary: COVID-19 illuminated the need for equity-informed practices in public health. This manuscript, to which Sylvia Baedorf Kassis and Dr. Barbara Bierer contributed, presents a community-led Ethics and Equity Framework and Workflow Checklist to guide ethical and equitable engagement with between community health centers and the populations they serve.
Description: New requirements for clinical trial sponsors to submit diversity action plans to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are an important step to embed planning for diverse representation in clinical trial research. These must not, however, be implemented in ways that are detrimental to other countries’ health and research interests. It is possible for those making operational decisions on country and site selection to address the needs of underserved populations in other countries at the same time as meeting US regulatory expectations — for example, by addressing barriers to diverse recruitment. Site selection should follow purposeful engagement in the local and regional culture, considering the needs of the local population, and proceed only if the trial is responsive to those needs.
Description: Barbara Bierer and Sarah White summarized salient ethical issues in the design and conduct of decentralized clinical trials, including participant safety, privacy and confidentiality, consent, digital access and proficiency, and trial oversight. Given the increasing involvement of decentralized study components, it is necessary to develop processes and cooperative solutions to promote safe, ethical trials, as well as focus on decreasing burden and increasing access for all participants.
Barbara Bierer, Deborah Zarin, and Luke Gelinas described in “Deprioritization of Ongoing Clinical Trials” the importance, ethical considerations, and challenges of ensuring that clinical trials continue to exhibit scientific relevance and value once initiated. Published in Ethics and Human Research, they suggested a framework to monitor ongoing trials and potential actions for responding to those findings of periodic review.
Mark Barnes, co-faculty director of the MRCT Center and Partner at Ropes & Gray, colleagues Minal Caron and Sarah Dohan at Ropes & Gray, and Barbara Bierer addressed the definition of “recklessness” in research misconduct proceedings, reviewing its history and application, and proposing a framework and factors to consider in recklessness determinations.
As an outgrowth of an international workshop held in Dec 2022, Dr. Bierer collaborated with experts in multiple sclerosis to develop recommendations regarding diversity and inclusivity of participants in clinical trials investigating multiple sclerosis.
