Abstract

The experiences in Brazil in responding to the AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics underscore the critical importance of bioethics as guiding principles in confronting public health crises. While Brazil’s response to the AIDS pandemic, marked by a strong ethical framework promoting and protecting human rights, serves as a notable example of successful intervention, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed significant shortcomings in the application of these principles, particularly concerning social equity, international solidarity and the role of scientific evidence.This chapter emphasizes the importance of a universal public health system and a national research ethics framework for the protection of human research participants. It also examines how the highest research ethics principles, promulgated by the Declaration of Helsinki (DoH) by the World Medical Association in 2000, have been incorporated into and have contributed to the Brazilian research ethics framework, which has been maintained until now. The analysis compares not only Brazil’s responses to the AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics, but also the DoH 2000 and the 2024 versions, to be shared with the global community of research ethics for deliberations.