Expert Witness: Medical research

Ethical and legal use of occupational health data

Summary:

Although a practice-based discipline, an important aspect of occupational health is research. Practitioners and researchers need to be aware both of the legal and ethical principles that must be adhered to when conducting research. Diana Kloss explains.

FOR more than 10 years I was the chair of a pharmacological ethics committee examining protocols for phase 1 tests of new drugs on healthy volunteers, mainly students. The only case where we were criticised in the press was a trial on healthy over-60s, where it was said that we were exploiting elderly poverty stricken pensioners by using them as…

Diana Kloss is a barrister, part-time chairman of employment tribunals, Acas arbitrator and author.

Author: Kloss D

Tags confidentiality data protection

Occupational Health at Work December/January 2007/2008 (vol. 04/4) pp32-33

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