Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 5.4
Good Practice, Criticisms and Challenges of Sex Worker Case
Good practice
Criticisms
Challenges
Comprehensive health care
package for participants
Some might regard
comprehensive health
care as undue inducement
Identification of who
should benefit if product
is marketed
Feedback to participants
Absence of binding
international legal regime
Research involves vulnerable
participants
Ongoing effective community
engagement strategy between
sex workers and researchers, e.g.
through peer representation and
consultation meetings
Building further in-country
research capacity
Problem of stigmatization of
research population because
sex work is illegal in Kenya
Improved representation of
sex workers, e.g. at government
consultations
No involvement of sex
workers in initial decisions
about benefit sharing (e.g.
contract between Nairobi
and Oxford)
Improving research capacity
in Kenya
No specific commitment
made to ensure post-study
access to developed products
Export of samples for analysis
due to lack of local capacity
samples provided in the Majengo study. This means that in 'most cases … the
samples or the materials are taken out of the country … [and] when these materi-
als are gone we never get to know what happens to these things.'
33
Kenya's guidelines on HIV vaccines research address this issue superficially:
'No biological material transfer shall be done without informed consent of the trial
participants' (Ministry of Health
2005
: 41 section 7.3).
34
However, while it is very
easy for individual participants to agree to their samples being transferred abroad
for analysis, or to consent to the transfer of material for (potential) commercial
development, this is not equivalent to the country having control over the samples.
The real issue arises when the issue of exploitation becomes pressing at a commu-
nity or country level. This will be discussed next with our final case study
(Tables
5.3
and
5.4
).
33
Ibid.
34
'Material transfer' here refers to the transfer of materials or specimens to another party.
