Ethical considerations for leprosy researchers

The aim of Leprosy Review (LR) is to contribute to the better understanding of leprosy and its control, mainly through publishing reports of research. Some authors are clinicians or field workers rather than being primarily scientists. As a member of a Research Ethics Committee under the UK Health Research Authority (CRB) and a university lecturer in research integrity (RP), and as Associate Editors of LR (both), we hope that this article will help such authors to recognise and manage the ethical aspects of their studies. We begin with commonly accepted statements of ethical principles, the application of these principles to particular circumstances, and then discuss Ethical Review and the issues it would cover; we then consider methods used by editorial boards to ensure ethical standards in their publications. Finally, we highlight some of the potentially difficult issues in leprosy-related research.