The author summarizes emerging standards for informed consent as the underpinning of ethical research in humans.

Bioethicists have failed to understand the pervasively paternalistic character of research ethics. Not only is the overall structure of research review and regulation paternalistic in some sense; even the way informed consent is sought may imply paternalism. Paternalism has limits, however. Getting clear on the paternalism of research ethics may mean some kinds of prohibited research should be ...

The problematic nature of informed consent to medical treatment and research, and its relation to autonomy, trust and clinical practice, has been addressed on many occasions and from a variety of ethical perspectives in the pages of the Journal of Medical Ethics. This paper gives an account of how discussion of these issues has developed and changed, by describing a number of significant contri...

Objectives Research has tended to focus on the information that researchers and ethicists deem important for informed consent to clinical trial participation and on the deficits in patients’ understanding of this information. Drawing on an alternative ‘capabilities’ approach we explored what information parents prioritised when making a decision about their child’s participation in a clinical t...

Typically, a consent document in the United States is a printed form with blank spaces in which the operative procedure is filled in. The form is signed by the patient, and placed into the medical record. At first glance, it would seem that the patient was told of the operative procedure and gave his or her consent. Yet informed consent, or, more accurately, lack of informed consent, is a frequ...