Towards collaborative partnerships in the governance of Canadian health research ethics

The most valuable resources common to all human health research endeavors are those individuals who voluntarily subject themselves to potential risks for the hope of improving human health and advancing medical science. Although human subjects’ participation in health research is acknowledged as instrumental to our understanding of health and illness and thereby an interest to society, the role of human subjects in determining how research is conducted, monitored, and, if successful, translated into health care, has been minimal until fairly recently. This paper argues from both moral and political grounds that meaningful and effective partnerships between human subjects and research communities ought to be mandated as a standard practice within Canadian policy guidelines for all health research initiatives that are conducive to collaborative engagements. By rendering decision-making a truly democratic endeavor, with the implementation of collaborative relationships between scientific and human subject communities with a similar framework to the Tri-Council Policy Statement and the Canadian Institute of Health Research’s guidelines on research involving Aboriginal People, a more transparent and accountable health research system will ensue. As a result, I argue, the health research enterprise in Canada as a whole will engender greater public trust.Arts, Faculty ofPhilosophy, Department ofGraduat