Bioethics scholars recommend broad consent
Researchers ask for different types of consent when they collect samples for future research. This creates confusion about what research is permitted. But it also causes unintentional constraints on future research and sometimes leads research proceeding without consent.
An international working group of bioethics scholars recently published a target article in the American Journal of Bioethics. They come to the conclusion that Broad Consent is the preferred solution for balancing patient interest related both to protection of privacy, respect for autonomy and the need to develop and improve medical treatment. The article is the outcome of a workshop of the ethical acceptability of addressing these concerns by using broad consent for future research on stored biospecimens arranged by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Read article: Broad Consent for Research With Biological Samples: Workshop Conclusions
Mats G. Hansson (Link removed) is one of the scholars behind the article. He has followed the discussions on informed consent for the better part of his career and recently wrote about a model for broad consent called trust based consent for our newsletter Biobank Perspectives (Link removed) .