The nature of research into health means that work in this area is far more likely to be controversial or to raise ethical concerns.
Not only can this introduce practical barriers to research, such as delays around ethical approval processes, but can also lead to significant legal, moral and public perception challenges, which may inhibit or prevent new technologies from ever reaching patients.
These challenges are much easier to address if anticipated and mitigated against.
Ethics
Various levels of ethical approval are required for studies involving people (or their data), animals or other biological samples.
Ethical approvals often take longer than anticipated and can be a source of unanticipated delays. Badly designed and inappropriate experiments on animals, people or their data are not just immoral but bad science too.
Responsible research and innovation
Research can be controversial and an unintended adverse reaction of the public to a given research topic can make work in the area more challenging and result in a negative legislative response. The best way to avoid such a reaction is to address controversial issues directly and appropriately.