It is the mission of every physcian to safeguard the health of the people. He is bound by the Declaration of Geneva of the World Medical Association and the International Code of Medical Ethics to consider the health of his patient above all else and act in the patient's best interest. The purpose of biomedical research involving human subjects, on the other hand, is to improve diagnostic, therapeutic and prophylactic procedures and the understanding the aetiology and pathogenesis of disease. These procedures involve hazards, but since medical progress is based on research which ultimately must rest on experimentation involving human subjects the need to recognize the fundamental distinction between practice and research became increasingly essential. Thus in order to further scientific knowledge and help suffering humanity the World Medical Association prepared the Declaration of Helsinki - a set of recommendations to guide all physicians involved in biomedical research using human subjects.

 
ìÖThe responsibility for the human subject must always rest with a medically qualified person and never rest on the subject of the research, even though thesubject has given his or her consent.î

 ìÖ In any medical study, every patient-including those of a control group, if any -should be assured of the best proven diagnostic therapeutic method.This doesnot exclude the use of inert placebo in studies where no proven diagnostic ortherapeutic method exists.î