When the costs of research (eg, the adverse effects of

a new drug) potentially outweigh the benefits (eg, the therapeutic effects of the same agent), however, ethical issues obviously become more apparent. Other important ethical issues include those of informed consent, confidentiality and privacy protection, and disclosure of results.5,6 In the field of psychological trauma and posttraumatic trauma, controversy is not uncommon, and questions about Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the ethics of research on trauma are no less subject to debate. In this paper, we discuss some of the ethical questions that surround work in this area, questions which have been inspired by some of our work in South Africa on trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the recent proceedings Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Background Before moving on to discussing ethical issues per se, it may be helpful to provide some general background on South Africa and the TRC. In 1994, after decades of political struggle, the apartheid regime of the Nationalist Party was replaced by a democratically elected government in which the African National Congress held the majority of seats. In response to the gross violations Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of human rights in the past, the new government passed the Promotion of National Unity and Reconcilation Act. This act was a negotiated settlement between the old and new regimes,

and at its heart was a move away from the concept of retributive justice for past crimes (as in the Nuremberg

trials), and towards a prudential focus on the common good.7-9 The act provided for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which would: (i) provide survivors a chance to relate the violations that they had suffered and recommend reparations where indicated; and Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical (ii) provide perpetrators with the opportunity to receive amnesty if they gave full disclosure of facts related to politically motivated acts. By establishing “as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes, and extent of gross violations of human rights,” Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the act aimed “to promote national unity and reconciliation in a spirit next of understanding which transcends the conflicts and divisions of the past.” For medical practitioners and researchers, a whole series of questions immediately springs to mind: What, if any, was the Autophagy Compound Library impact of gross human rights violations on health? Did the TRC have a therapeutic effect for survivors who gave testimony, or were they retraumatized? Was the effect of the TRC on the nation as a whole beneficial or not?10 Medical research was, of course, not at the head of the TRC’s agenda and, unfortunately, there was no prospective attempt to investigate such questions. Nevertheless, we recently obtained funding to study a cross-sectional probability sample of South Africans with the aim of assessing exposure to trauma, posttraumatic psychiatric symptoms, and attitudes toward the TRC.