Proteomics & Bioinformatics

Correspondence:

Received: January 01, 1970 | Published: ,

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Keywords

ethical review, human samples, urine

Editorial

Taking urine sample naturally is completely harmless to the donor. As long as the identification information of the urine donors is seriously protected, the ethical review requirement for urimarker studies should not be as stringent as that of studies using other human samples. All human beings are created equal. But not all human being’s are created equal. Some body parts are untouchable. Others need to be disposed once a while, with pleasure. When a research paper is submitted, the authors are always asked for the same question: “Are human samples used”. Then complicated ethical requirements are asked to present no matter what human samples were used, Brain? Heart? Blood? Stool or Urine? Taking those samples are not equally harmful to the donor. Ethical review reviews the balance of benefit and harm to the human beings and the donors. How harmful to the donor is it to take his/her urine naturally? Physically not at all, which is very different from taking samples from any other biopsy procedures. There is still chance that information reveal the urine can be used against the donor. The donor may have higher insurance premium or even loss of insurance if the insurance company knows it. That reminds us the identification information of the urine donors need to be seriously protected throughout the study. Urine may become a widely studied biomarker source^1,2 because it contains all sort of changes from all the organs all over the body. It may not be a problem if there is only a few groups studying biomarkers in urine. But as the field develops, should we have a different ethical review requirement for urimarker studies by the publishers? A suitable standard may facilitate the development of the field. Not all human being’s are created equal.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2012CB517606, 2013CB530805), the Key Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013FY114100).