Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

The Belmont Report, issued in 1979 by the US National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, is a landmark document providing guidance on the ethics of research involving human subjects. It is divided into three sections: (1) “Boundaries between practice and research; (2) “Basic ethical principles” (respect for persons, beneficence, and justice); and (3) “Applications of these principles with respect to informed consent, assessment of risks and benefits, and selection of subjects.”

While the Belmont Report has enduring significance, the landscape of biomedical research has changed in important ways over the past 40 years. Additionally, a large and growing body of scholarship on research ethics has been developed. This special issue of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine contains 12 essays by scholars who reflect on the ethical guidance of the Belmont Report by placing this document in historical perspective and by assessing some of its salient limitations. Individually, and collectively, these essays demonstrate that contemporary thinking about the ethics of biomedical research both builds upon the foundation laid down by the Belmont Report and necessarily moves beyond its seminal ethical guidance. [End Page 219]