Participation of patients in medical research requires that a balance is struck—between anticipated benefits and potential harms of the new treatment being assessed, and with a view to the broader value of evidence accrued for guiding clinical practice and future research. Tensions can arise, however. Research in low-income settings has sometimes been perceived to be of greater potential benefit to those in high-income countries, where a drug may be marketed after licensing. In an extreme case, at the time of an outbreak of influenza A H5N1 virus in 2006–07, researchers in Indonesia were unable to share clinical samples with their counterparts in high-income countries, owing to a perceived lack of reciprocity for the benefits of research.