April 18, 1979. The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, as part of the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services), issued a report titled “The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research." The report is given its name from a period of discussions that were held at the Smithsonian Institution’s Belmont Conference Center beginning in 1976.

The report attempts to summarize the ethical principles and problems that surround research of human subjects, without making recommendations towards those problems. Instead, the report is intended to be taken as a policy statement of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The report concluded that "the primary principles underlying ethical research with human beings are respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. The methods used to recognize these principles are informed consent, risk/benefit analysis, and appropriate selection of patients." (Fischer, 2006, p. 72).

Ultimately, due to the work of the National Commission in creating the Belmont Report, the Department of Health and Human Services revised its regulations for the protection of human subjects in the 1970s and 80s (The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1979). The enforcement of ethical and humane boundaries in scientific study is meant to help prevent mistakes in taking advantage of the promise of genetics, and therefore embracing eugenics. Other major documents have also been developed to provide ethical guidelines to biomedical researchers, including the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, the U.S. Common Rule, the Guideline for Good Clinical Practice, and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission's report on research protections for the mentally ill (Fischer, 2006).

Full text of the report can be found here.

-Laura Shaw and Colette Leung

• The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (1979). The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (No. 78-0014). The United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Retrieved from http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.html.

• Belmont Report. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_Report.

• Fischer, B. A. (2006). A Summary of Important Documents in the Field of Research Ethics. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 31(1): 69-80. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbj005