Pregnancy and HIV/AIDS: Seeking Equitable Study (PHASES) Principal Investigator Anne Drapkin Lyerly is set to present at this November’s Advancing Ethical Research Conference (AERC), hosted by Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R) in Anaheim, CA. She will share work from the grant-funded PHASES project, whose core team includes KIE Director Maggie Little as co-principal investigator, and the KIE’s Marisha Wickremsinhe as digital campaign coordinator.
Dr. Lyerly is an Associate Professor of Social Medicine and Associate Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She joins co-panelists Dr. Christine Grady of the National Institutes of Health and Dr. Robert M. Nelson of the USDA, along with moderator Laura Odwazny, on “Panel VIII: Beyond Vulnerability, Toward Inclusion: Comparable Access for Women Across the Lifespan.”
Well into its fifth decade of AERC, PRIM&R has continually hosted educational events where professionals gather to deconstruct, discuss, and debate issues affecting the world of research ethics and oversight and to network with colleagues in the field. The 2016 AERC will bring together more than 2,300 professionals from public and private institutions, the federal government, industry, and academia.
Dr. Lyerly’s panel in particular looks to discuss women across the lifespan – women of childbearing potential, pregnant women, and lactating women – and their historical exclusion to a greater or lesser extent from research participation. Further, the panel looks to explore the existing tension between the Belmont Report, which advises the community to be cognizant of principles involving equitable selection of subjects, autonomy, and inclusion in research, and the federal human subjects research regulations that categorize pregnant women as a vulnerable subject population. Finally, this panel will explore the idea that, based on the above considerations and a focus on the “’forgotten’” Belmont principle of justice, there is an ethical imperative to include fertile, pregnant and lactating women in research.
The PHASES team is excited to announce representation at such a renowned intersection of scholarship and communication and looks forward to Dr. Lyerly’s presentation, as well as the input of her co-panelists.