Charles Weijer
Professor
Joint Appointment with Department of Medicine
Cross Appointment with Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Bioethics, Research Ethics
BMdSc, MD Alberta; BA (Hons) MSc,
Office: Stevenson Hall 4130
Email: cweijer@uwo.ca
Website: charlesweijer.com/
Charles Weijer is a bioethicist and an internationally recognized expert in research ethics. From 2008 to 2013 Charles co-led a collaboration that produced the first international ethics guidelines for cluster randomized trials. He led the writing team for the World Health Organization guidance on “Ethical Considerations for Health Policy and Systems Research,” published in 2019. In 2020, Charles served on the WHO Working Group for Guidance on Human Challenge Studies in COVID-19. He currently co-leads a CIHR-funded interdisciplinary team exploring the responsible implementation in Canada of a promising organ donation technology, called normothermic regional perfusion (NRP). Charles also co-leads a CIHR-funded international team writing the 2026 Update to the Ottawa Statement on the Ethical Design and Conduct of Cluster Randomized Trials. Charles held the Canada Research Chair in Bioethics from 2005 to 2019, and, in 2016, he was elected to the Royal Society of Canada.
Selected publications
Weijer C, Grimshaw JM, Taljaard M, Binik A, Boruch R, Brehaut JC, Donner A, Eccles MP, Gallo A, McRae AD, Saginur R, Zwarenstein M. Ethical issues posed by cluster randomized trials in health research. Trials 2011; 12: 100.
Weijer C, Grimshaw JM, Eccles MP, McRae AD, White A, Brehaut JC, Taljaard M and the Ottawa Ethics of Cluster Randomized Trials Consensus Group. The Ottawa statement on the ethical design and conduct of cluster randomized trials. PLoS Medicine 2012; 9(11): e1001346.
Weijer C, Bruni T, Gofton T, Young GB, Norton L, Peterson A, Owen AM. Ethical considerations in functional magnetic resonance imaging research in acutely comatose patients. Brain 2016; 139(Pt 1): 292-299.
Weijer C, Goldstein CE, Taljaard M. TwiC or treat? Are Trials within Cohorts ethically defensible? Clinical Trials 2018; 15(1): 21-24.
Mtande TK, Weijer C, Hosseinipour MC, Taljaard M, Matoga M, Goldstein CE, Nyambalo B, Rosenberg NE. Ethical issues raised by cluster randomised trials conducted in low-resource settings: identifying gaps in the Ottawa Statement through an analysis of the PURE Malawi trial. Journal of Medical Ethics 2019; 45(6): 388-393.
Weijer C, Taljaard M. Ottawa Statement does not impede randomised evaluation of government health programmes. Journal of Medical Ethics 2020; 46(1): 31-33.
McPartlin SO, Morrison J, Rohrig A, Weijer C. Covid-19 vaccines: Should we allow human challenge studies to infect healthy volunteers with SARS-CoV-2? British Medical Journal 2020; 371: m4258.
Weijer C, Hemming K, Phillips Hey S, Fernandez Lynch H. Reopening schools safely in the face of COVID-19: Can cluster randomized trials help? Clinical Trials 2021; 18(3): 371-376.
Nix HP, Weijer C, Brehaut JC, Forster D, Goldstein CE, Taljaard M. Informed consent in cluster randomised trials: a guide for the perplexed. BMJ Open 2021; 11(9): e054213.
Nix HP, Largent EA, Taljaard M, Mitchell SL, Weijer C. Ethical analysis of vulnerabilities in cluster randomized trials involving people living with dementia in long-term care homes. JAGS: Journal of the American Geriatric Society 2023; 71(2): 588-598.
Murphy N, Weijer C, Debicki D, Laforge G, Norton L, Gofton T, Slessarev M. Ethics of non-therapeutic research on imminently dying patients in the intensive care unit. Journal of Medical Ethics 2023; 49(5): 311-318.
Rid A, Feld JJ, Liang TJ, Weijer C. Ethics of controlled human infection studies with hepatitis C virus. Clinical Infectious Diseases 2023; 77(Supplement_3): S216-S223.
