1. 1Use of the terms 'developing' and 'developed' countries clumsily lumps together many distinct countries with diverse cultural norms and levels of social and economic development. Despite these limitations I will use this terminology for this paper because it is easily recognizable and captures an adequate approximation of the power and resource differential that is important to this discussion.
2. 2For this discussion I limit my focus to the two primary parties involved in research - the trial sponsors and the research subjects. In reality, international research involves and affects many more parties: local community and families, the local medical establishment, the researchers themselves; and the benefits of research also flow to the HIV/AIDS community in the developed world. A fuller analysis of exploitation that considered the benefits and burdens to each of these groups would be an important next step in the exploitation debate but is not an issue I have room to address here.
3. 3For example, the Trovan research carried out on children in Kano (Nigeria) by Pfizer during a meningitis epidemic in 1996. SeeNigerians sue Pfizer over test deaths. BBC News Business. 30 August 2001: 23.49 hrs;Nigerians angered by drug trial delay. BBC News Africa. 30 July 2001: 21.18 hrs.
4. 4A. Wertheimer. 1996.Exploitation.Princeton. Princeton University Press; A. Wertheimer. 2001. Exploitation.Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophyhttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/exploitation/ (accessed 10 July 2004).