Undue Inducement and Coercion

Abstract

Undue inducement and coercion, both wrongful ways of eliciting consent, are introduced as the significant impediments they are to research in the developing world. A prevailing ‘international orthodoxy’ is described by Weinrib as being the tendency of research ethics committees to avoid benefit sharing for fear of breaching ethical guidelines that warn against this danger. The general discussion on the undue inducement in bioethics is followed by two case studies designed to emphasize its salient features, as well as the key concerns of the international research ethics guidelines, namely vulnerability, autonomy and risk (beneficence and non-maleficence). The role, function and capacity of research ethics committees to assure beneficence and non-maleficence of genomic research are then discussed in the light of concerns about protection of research participants from undue influence or coercion. Finally the two case studies are reviewed in the light of the foregoing analysis. The discussion concludes that benefit sharing should not be limited by concerns about undue influence and coercion in genomic research, which was never the intended domain for these particular ethical concerns. The guidelines provided by the law of equity for identification of these forms of exploitation are acknowledged, which if applied by functioning research ethics committees should guarantee research participants of ethical treatment.