The Belmont Report. Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research.

On July 12, 1974, the National Research Act (Pub. L. 93-348) was signed into law, thereby creating the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. One of the charges to the Commission was to identify the basic ethical principles that should underlie the conduct of biomedical and behavioral research involving human subjects and to develop guidelines which should be followed to assure that such research is conducted in accordance with those principles. In carrying out the above, the Commission was directed to consider: (a) the boundaries between biomedical and behavioral research and the accepted and routine practice of medicine, (b) the role of assessment of…