Healthy people volunteering to be infected with SARS-CoV-2, in order to help scientists better understand how to tackle the virus, should receive payment — if it is determined that these studies are otherwise ethical to proceed, new research suggests.
The researchers assessed the ethics of paying participants to take part in the so-called `Human Infection Challenge Studies` (HICS) and said that they do not necessarily endorse the use of HICS for Covid-19. But if HICS proceed, not only should participants be paid, but their payment should be “substantial”.
“Our work was spurred by concerns that payment for SARS-CoV-2 HICS might require a novel ethical framework, which we ultimately determined to be unfounded,” said lead author Holly Fernandez Lynch from the University of Pennsylvania.
“Payment for HICS participation should be treated like payment in other clinical studies involving healthy participants,” Lynch added. Over the past few months, there has been vast…