Revised Declaration of Helsinki Supports Compensation for Individuals Harmed in Research

The World Medical Association’s recently revised Declaration of Helsinki includes increased protections for medical research subjects among the several changes to the 50-year-old statement, which outlines ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. The revised statement, published in the November 27, 2013, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), is the seventh revision to the declaration since it was first issued in 1964. The revised statement includes a new provision for appropriately compensating medical research subjects who are harmed as a result of participating in research.