Hellman, Deborah2019-09-252019-09-252008-12-31199810672478http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/171632Research ethics generally fails to capture public attention and scrutiny. But a debate over clinical trials in developing countries moved suddenly into the public domain last fall, when an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine criticized studies designed to test the efficacy of antiretroviral drugs in reducing mother-to-infant transmission of HIV. The editorial objected to the trials because they included placebo-control groups, in which HIV-infected pregnant women were given a dummy pill rather than the drug zidovudine (AZT). The criticism was especially pointed because in nine of the fifteen trials then under way, funding had been provided by U.S. health agencies -- the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).engWith permission of the license/copyright holdersocial ethicsmedical ethicsMethods of ethicsBioethicsPhilosophical ethicsMedical ethicsArticle