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Health research in developing countries has long been dogged by concerns about exploitation. Part of the reason has to do with a strangely desocialized conception of research as (merely) the systematic production of data. According to this view, researchers try to manufacture reliable data, the benefits of which (in the best-case scenario) are to arrive sometime in the future, when it is used to improve health care practice. When health research is framed in this data-centric way, it is natural to ask what the individual research participants and local communities, particularly in developing countries, get out of the deal. After all, the data may just show a negative result; or the results may be promising, but linger inertly in some foreign medical journal; or the results may be implemented, but in someone else’s health care system. To counteract these and other potential sources of research exploitation, ethicists and others have argued for a veritable laundry list of benefits that participants and communities ought to have: poststudy access to successful interventions; provision of ancillary care; continuing care for chronic conditions; employment for community members; and so on. Since research as “data generator” in itself is often not beneficial in the short term, and its procedures are sometimes quite risky and burdensome, adding to the benefit pile is supposed to bring us closer to the elusive ideal of “fair benefits”.