The establishment of ethical guidelines for biomedical research in Libya

• Published in: Libyan journal of medicine Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 33424 - 2
• Main Authors: Bugaighis, Iman, El-Howati, Asma, Elmusrati, Ahmed S. Ali, Arheiam, Arheiam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Taylor & Francis 01.01.2016; Taylor & Francis Ltd; Co-Action Publishing; Taylor & Francis Group
• Subjects: Bioethics; Biomedical research; Biomedical Research - ethics; Biomedical Research - standards; Communication; Councils; Dental research; Dentistry; Ethics, Research; Guidelines as Topic; Human subjects; Humans; International organizations; Letter to the Editor; Libya; Medical ethics; Medical research; Oral hygiene; Public health; Researchers; Well being; Libya
• DOI: 10.3402/ljm.v11.33424
• ISSN: 1993-2820

Over recent decades, there has been an upsurge in professional and public interest in how biomedical research and clinical trials are conducted. This has coincided with a growing awareness of the importance of ethical considerations in research. The key ethical principles are to safeguard the rights, well-being, and dignity of research participants, and the obligation to reflect on moral aspects of improvements in health care, science, and technology. In this regard, several ethical codes and guidelines have been developed by a number of countries and international organizations. To the best of our knowledge from anecdotal evidence, currently there are no clear ethical guidelines for biomedical research in Libya. There was, nonetheless, a decree issued by the previous Libyan Council of Ministry whereby a concept, rather than a set of guidelines, was instigated and its privilege transferred to the Ministry of Higher Education. However, we wonder if this decree, which was stated ambiguously, i.e. only the phrase biological ethics was mentioned, implemented any guidelines. Based on that, the authors aimed to create a real set of guidelines which can be adopted in biomedical research in Libya.