Newsletter

Division of Medical Ethics and Law

ARESA

Current Newsletter

The South African Research Ethics Committee (SAREC) Newsletter, edited by Prof. Keymanthri Moodley, has been issued since 2004. The Newsletter, all of whose issues are available at the Division of Medical Ethics and Law website, functions as a sounding board to discuss and debate ethical issues in health research and to establish consensus on a host of controversial ethical issues facing health research in the country. It also provides general news about research ethics in Southern Africa and other items of interest to those who are involved in research ethics committees. The newsletter offers (for example) information about new or modified research ethics guidelines and publishes reports of research ethics and bioethics events that have taken place in the Southern African region, as well as announcements of upcoming events of interest to the research ethics community. From 2011 onwards an ARESA newsletter will be issued bi-annually. The newsletter will be trainee-driven; trainees will act as contributing authors and the content of the newsletter will partly reflect trainee perspectives on research ethics issues. Both current and former ARESA trainees will be encouraged and supported to contribute to the newsletter. This will further build the capacity of the ARESA trainees while at the same time serving to strengthen the informal network of REC members as the transition is made to a more formal REC association. Hard copies of the newsletters will be distributed to attendees at the Annual ARESA Research Ethics Seminar and other research ethics events in South Africa.