CIOMS, in association with the World Health Organization, started its work on ethics in health-related research in the late 1970s. Accordingly, CIOMS set out, in cooperation with WHO, to prepare guidelines to indicate how the ethical principles set forth in the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association, could be effectively applied, particularly in low-resource settings, given their socio-economic circumstances, laws and regulations, and executive and administrative arrangements. Since then revised editions of the CIOMS ethical guidelines were published in 1993 and 2002. New developments in research have prompted CIOMS to again revise their ethical guidelines. The result is now available in this new publication.

In the new 2016 version of the ethical Guidelines, CIOMS provides answers to a number of pressing issues in research ethics. The Council does so by stressing the need for research having scientific and social value, by providing special guidelines for health-related research in low-resource settings, by detailing the provisions for involving vulnerable groups in research and for describing under what conditions biological samples and health-related data can be used for research.