Abstract
This article investigates some questions inherent to scientific paediatric research that have given rise to an international medical and ethical-juridical debate, particularly in the British and Italian legal systems. Clinical trials are modelled on adult patients, who have very different body and metabolic parameters from those of children. Therefore, ethical-juridical doubts arise regarding the balancing of opposing rights of the child: is it legitimate to try everything possible for a child's survival? Even if this means the child becomes a guinea pig in research? Otherwise, the fate is death. In this situation, how is it possible to identify the child's "best interest"?