 Clinical research which poses net risks raises important ethical concern. Net-risk studies raise concern that participants are being used as mere means to collect information to benefit future patients. Research procedures that pose net risks may seem to raise less concern when they are embedded within a study which offers a favorable risk-benefit profile overall. Yet, since these procedures pose net risks, and since the investigators could provide participants with the new potential treatment alone, they require justification. An investigator who is about to insert a needle into a research participant to obtain some blood purely for laboratory purposes faces the question of whether doing so is ethically justified, even when the procedure is included in a study that offers participants the potential for important medical benefit. The goal of ethical analyses of clinical research is to provide an answer.