Recently I had some classes about the ethics of doing research on humans in developing countries. There are many hoops to jump through in order to get approval to do research on humans in developed countries but when you move to developing countries, things get even stickier because, among many ethical issues, you shouldn’t be testing treatments on people who will never be able to afford them when (or if) they’re approved. Research ethics boards, researchers themselves, global health advocates feel very uncomfortable risking people’s health during research for a product they will never get to benefit from. So do I.

But as we were discussing the ins and outs I was struck by something. One of the people with a lot of experience in this field–and who would never approve of a study where the participants didn’t have access to the benefits of research–had an Iphone. I know I always pick on Iphones. It’s not because of resentment (well, not fully because of resentment) but because they’re so popular and the health conditions that the people who produce them has been so well documented in the media. I definitely own products just as bad as the Iphone. Don’t worry.

Here’s the issue I see. How can we all get so up in arms about research where the participants might not benefit from the results and yet we own products produced in the same way. Poor, Chinese labourers are risking their health to produce an Iphone that they’ll never be able to afford. Is it not the same situation? Under our faulty logic (or, maybe I shouldn’t call it logic, maybe lack of awareness), we couldn’t test new pharmaceuticals on people who couldn’t benefit from them but we could get them to work in the factory to produce the pharmaceuticals, at a risk to their health, in order to produce a drug they will never have access to. Something is wrong somewhere.

What is going on here? We are, rightfully, extremely stringent when it comes to regulating ethics regarding human research, but we are completely negligent when it comes to human labour.

You need ethics approval to recruit people to research on them. Why don’t we need ethics approval to recruit people to make or build things for us? It’s the exact same situation. Risking someone’s health for something they can’t benefit from. Why do we see them is such different light?

I’m waiting for an answer.