Ending concerns about undue inducement.

or decades, worries about undue inducement have pervaded clinical research, and are especially comF mon when research is accompanied by payment or conducted in developing countries.’ Few ethical judgments carry as much moral opprobrium or are thought to undermine the ethical soundness of a clinical trial as thoroughly as undue inducement. Indeed, the admonition to prevent undue inducement is one of the few explicit instructions in the “Common Rule’s’’ requirements for informed consent.z Despite their long history and pervasiveness, charges of undue inducement in clinical research are almost always mistaken. Indeed, I will advance an even more radical claim: A research trial that otherwise fulfills the fundamental ethical requirements for human subjects research inherently cannot create the possibility of undue inducement because substantial risk of serious harm is precluded. Charges of undue inducement tend to express displaced and mislabeled ethical concerns about other aspects of human subjects research. Consequently, claims of undue inducement should rarely be made, and when they are advanced should be treated with skepticism, placing a heavy burden of proof on those advancing such charges.