Bioethics in China: although national guidelines are in place, their implementation remains difficult.

Abstract

The history of bioethics in China is a rather short one: attention was first given to research and medical ethics in the 1960s. Courses on biomedical bioethics became obligatory in the 1980s. In 1983, Qiu Xiangxing first published the textbook Medical Ethics for Chinese colleges (Qiu, 2005), which was subsequently used for teaching medical students. The Chinese Association for Medical Ethics was also founded in the mid‐1980s, and the Ministry of Public Health released its first guidelines on medical ethics; however, these guidelines were not legally binding regulations. In 1998, the Ministry of Health issued a provisional document which defined the procedures for ethical reviews of any biomedical research involving humans in China. In detail, it regulates topics such as informed consent, the responsibilities of investigators, the rights of research subjects, and the administrative management of ethical reviews and legal responsibilities. In its introductory section, the document states that ethical reviews are “based upon the principles of ethics accepted by the international community”. > …Chinese regulations and guidelines do not substantially differ from those in Europe or the USA… Today, the Ministry of Health's national Biomedical Research Ethics Committee manages and oversees all biomedical research ethics in China. In addition, local authorities in the provinces and autonomous regions must establish their own committees to review research proposals that touch on ethical questions. Their interaction with the national committee is on the basis of ‘professional guidance’ rather than on hierarchical frameworks. Research and health institutions in the provinces submit all research projects that require ethical review to their local committee, which then accepts or rejects the project. Many hospitals, research institutes and universities have also set up their own bioethical review committees to screen applications before submitting them to the local authorities. ![][1] The regulation of bioethical issues in China is complemented by … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif