Development proposals of Human Research Protection Program

Abstract

Background: China’s ethics committees alone are unable to meet the growing need for human participant protection. Several scandals in recent years indicate weaknesses in the protection of human participants in China. Objectives: The aim of the study is to summarize the status and problems of human research protection program in China and to explore its establishment proposals at national and hospital levels. Research design: To conduct literature retrieval, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Biomedical Document Database, and English databases Web of Science and PubMed were searched; laws, guidelines, and regulations were also searched on web by Google and Chinese search engine Baidu. Ethical considerations: No data were collected from human participants, and ethical review was not required. Findings: There are problems for China’s Human Research Protection Program, such as weak relevant legal systems, insufficient administrative supervision, and incompetent ethics committee capacities. To fully protect human participants, China should promote the development of Human Research Protection Program, which can formulate ethics-related laws, improve regulations for the protection of the safety and rights of human participants, strengthen supervision, and enforce compensation for human participants. Owing to the frequency with which human participants are recruited in hospitals in China, hospitals can utilize existing ethics committees and establish data and safety monitoring committees, quality control, fund and contract management, and conflict of interest management offices. Discussion: As a growing program, it remains necessary to learn from the experience of developed countries with high ethics standards and reformulate them to fit China’s conditions to explore potential future development. The program will also be an experience for other developing countries. Conclusion: Human Research Protection Program can strengthen communication and coordination among various hospital departments to effectively protect the rights and welfare of human participants.