Christos Tsagkaris, Social Media Editor at JBI Evidence Implementation, Member of the Board of the Cancer Mission of the European Commission, shared on LinkedIn:
“Healthy does not mean invulnerable: protecting those who advance research.
Before many new medicines reach patients, healthy volunteers take part in early clinical trials to help us understand safety, tolerability and how a drug behaves in the human body.
They accept exposure to an experimental medicine without expecting a therapeutic benefit themselves.
People volunteer for many reasons-from dedication to research and future patients to financial or personal circumstances that may themselves create vulnerability.
Being healthy does not mean being invulnerable.
This is the principle behind the Global Ethics Charter for the Protection of Healthy Volunteers in Clinical Trials, developed through VOLREthics.
Its 15 rights address informed consent, fair recruitment and compensation, protection from harm and exploitation, independent oversight, transparency and follow-up.
Read further here.
I was very happy to coordinate the Charter’s Greek translation together with the Hellenic Cancer Federation – ELLOK, particularly Marina Ximeri and George Kapetanakis, and in close collaboration with the VOLREthics team, especially Hirsch François and François Bompart.
The translation closes a small circle, that opened in Brussels in 2023, when I first learned about VOLREthics through Prof. Christina Chomienne and our collaboration within the EU Cancer Mission.
Today, this work becomes accessible in Greek and its message becomes available to and for cancer research, healthy volunteers and patients in Greece.
Cancer research may be described as a pathway from the bench to the clinic, but progress crosses many other paths: ethics, participation, regulation and trust among them.
Protecting those who make clinical research possible is one of these paths – and another reason to work beyond silos, with all stakeholders around the table and within the society.”
You can also read: Launching Unlock Cancer Breakthroughs Campaign with 100 Volunteers – Cancer Research UK
