India Research Ethics Scandal: Students made guinea pigs in sex study

A research ethics scandal appears to be breaking in India in regards to research carried out with adolescents within a school without parental consent. (Hat tip to Nita)


While the school principal claimed that this was just part of routine practice this seems to be false, as it is part of a study being carried out by the Health Care and Research Association for Adolescents. Furthermore despite the innocuous sounding name a committee came to the conclusion that the privacy of the participants was violated, and worse still it was done for commercial purposes.

Apparently this research involved genital examinations and a number of probing personal questions, about for example, underwear size and menstrual periods. The researchers claim that they presumed the school had handled consent.

It will be interesting to see what measures the Indian government takes to deal with this.

Postscript while we would all like to think this sort of thing won't happen here (wherever here is) posts like this: Drug study on kids won't require consent should suggest that we should not relax too much.