Ethics on Trial
Protecting Humans in Canada’s Broken Research System
Exposing the human consequences of Canada’s broken research system.
The governance framework for human research in Canada is dangerously flawed and has the potential to lead to harm and suffering.
Canadian researchers and research companies have been allowed to flirt with informed consent, “forum shop” for less restrictive ethical oversight, and violate the rights, safety, and welfare of fellow Canadians — including those in situations of vulnerability — under the watchful eye of a federal government unwilling to fix the system.
In Ethics on Trial - Protecting Humans in Canada’s Broken Research System (Dundurn Press, September 2025), Janice Parente, who has led the fight for oversight and accountability of human research in Canada for three decades, shows readers the devastating consequences of the current flawed approach. She proposes a simple solution that embraces a good and ethical system of governance — a system that Canadians should insist on and Canada’s lawmakers and research funders should adopt.
Ethics on Trial is available at your favourite bookstore or online distributor.
They Came Seeking Care
Inside Canada’s Quiet Return to Unethical Human Experimentation
Exposing a growing moral blind spot in Canadian medicine: the quiet return of human experimentation disguised as clinical care.
Across the country, unapproved stem cell therapies, psychedelic infusions, fertility treatments, genomic interventions, and algorithm-driven hospital programs are being offered daily under the banner of innovation, compassionate access, or personalized treatment. These interventions collect human data, test unproven methods, and shape clinical practice - often proceeding without ethical review or regulatory authorization.
Drawing on decades at the frontlines of human research protection, Janice Parente traces the emergence of a culture that has learned to rename experimentation as treatment. Through rigorous investigation and deeply human storytelling, she reveals that the most dangerous form of unethical research is no longer hidden - it has been normalized, embedded within the ordinary rituals of care.
They Came Seeking Care focuses on Canada’s modern ethical regression - a national narrative that has not yet been told. It is both exposé and warning: if Canada fails to confront the culture that blurs the line between care and research, it will repeat the moral failures of its past.
They Came Seeking Care is scheduled for publication by Dundurn Press in the Fall of 2027.