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Informed Consent: Its History, Meaning, and Present Challenges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 August 2011

TOM L. BEAUCHAMP
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Extract

The practice of obtaining informed consent has its history in, and gains its meaning from, medicine and biomedical research. Discussions of disclosure and justified nondisclosure have played a significant role throughout the history of medical ethics, but the term “informed consent” emerged only in the 1950s. Serious discussion of the meaning and ethics of informed consent began in medicine, research, law, and philosophy only around 1972.

Type
Special Section: From Informed Consent to No Consent?
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 515 - 523
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

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11. For an example of how the legal doctrine is still today used by prominent authors in bioethics as a foundational starting point for theory and practice, see Appelbaum, PS, Lidz, CW, Klitzman, R.Voluntariness of consent to research: A conceptual model. Hastings Center Report 2009;39(1):30–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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13. Harmon, A.Indian tribe wins fight to limit research of its DNA. New York Times. 2010 Apr 21Google Scholar; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/us/22dna.html; Harmon, A.Havasupai case highlights risks in DNA research. New York Times. 2010 Apr 22Google Scholar; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/us/22dnaside.html (last accessed 14 Sept 2010).

14. Harmon, A.Where’d you go with my DNA? New York Times. 2010 Apr 25Google Scholar; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/weekinreview/25harmon.html (last accessed 14 Sept 2010). Also see note 13, Harmon 2010 Apr 21; and Harmon 2010 Apr 22.