A review of the research ethics review process

SCIENCE has marched across history often leaving a trail of disrupted, even destroyed lives and environments. Indigenous peoples and their knowledge were mapped, probed, cataloged and endangered.

Vulnerable sectors were intruded into, with their daily lives treated as laboratory specimens even in their most private moments. Genetic materials were stolen, blood samples taken, and bodies probed and tested. Natural environments were disturbed and even degraded. And in most of these cases, the scientists were the ones who got published, earned accolades, obtained more research grants, and got hired, promoted and tenured. Those from whom they obtained their data only got token gifts and free food, if at all.