title: Community participation in AIDS vaccine trials: empowerment or science?
abstract: For future AIDS vaccines to be successfully tested and implemented, extensive participation in vaccine trials will be necessary. Central to the challenges associated with such participation is concern for protection of participant wellbeing. This short report examines the tension that is sometimes found between the pragmatic need for recruitment into trials, and a more general social good concerning community participation in health. Community empowerment and trial participation are sometimes assumed to go hand in hand, but are potentially contradictory. Recognizing the possible disjunction between empowerment and trial participation allows for clearer discussion of and planning for ethical, scientifically valid trials.
authors.affiliation: University of Stellenbosch and Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa. lswartz@sun.ac.za
authors.forename: Leslie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Swartz
authors.forename: Ashraf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kagee
mesh_terms: D016915:AIDS Vaccines; D017326:Clinical Trials, Phase III as Topic / Q000941:ethics*; D003256:Community Participation; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D016743:Mental Competency; D018579:Patient Selection / Q000941:ethics*
chemical_list: D016915:AIDS Vaccines