Letter from the Editor

For thousands of years humans have become ill and for the same amount of time people have tried to cure them. In so doing, early medical practitio ners intentionally or unintentionall y carried out biomedical research. Biomedical research is indispensable for extending our knowledge of health and disease and thus improving the quality of human life. Such research inevitably requires the involvement of human subjects. How ever, the use of people in research opens the door to potential danger and exploitation, particul arly of the poor, less educated and more vulnerable members of society. Furthermore, the immense technological advances that have been made in:medicine since the 20th century have given rise to ethical issues never before faced, such as organ transplantation, in vitro fertilization, the beginning and end of the human life and cloning. While all cultures without doubt share the belief that it is imperative to have mechanisms in place to protect individuals from the dangers in biomedi cal research and exploitation and to consider the ethical implications of technological advance s, different cultures will inevitably have different perspectives on the issues .