Informed Consent facts

While investigating facts about Informed Consent Form and Informed Consent Definition, I found out little known, but curios details like:

In 1947 the US government simulated a biological warfare attack by spraying bacteria on the entire city of San Francisco without informing the residents or obtaining consent, in violation of The Nuremberg Code.

how informed consent is obtained?

The Nuremburg Code stipulates "voluntary, informed consent" for research participants, and experiments that might lead to death/disability are unacceptable. U.S.A. violated The Code throughout the 1950-70s w/ large scale releases of bacteria in NYC subway, on PA Turnpike, and National Airport.

What informed consent means?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what informed consent definition. Here are 16 of the best facts about Informed Consent In Research and Informed Consent In Healthcare I managed to collect.

what's informed consent?

1. Henry Beecher, anesthesiologist in Boston, published a 1966 article that drew attention to 22 examples of unethical clinical research that had risked patients' lives, which along with subsequent Congressional investigation led to current guidelines on informed consent and human research.

2. The movie, The Constant Gardner, is inspired by a real life event involving Pfizer testing Trovafloxacin, an untested and unproven antibiotic, on 200 children in Africa without their informed consent which led to 6 deaths and multiple cases of blindness, brain damage, and deafness.

3. Between 1974 and 1984 a pro-paedophile activist group called the Paedophile Information Exchange campaigned openly in the UK to abolish the age of consent and even spoke on national television about their views on sexual contact with underage children

4. As part of the UK's BTinfinity Broadband rollout, Huawei, a Chinese company with ties to the Chinese military, was allowed unfettered access to critical national systems without the consent of the UK Government because BT didn't inform them

5. The CIA conducted a series of "mind control" experiments from 1950-1973 manipulating people under LSD and other psychotics without their consent, to force them to disclose information. Experiments continued even after Dr. Frank Olson, an Army scientist, fell 13 stories after a surprise trip.

6. A group called the Pedophile Information Exchange campaigned for "children's sexuality" and lowering the age of consent in the 1970's

7. Genetic studies that need both the patient's & biological parents' DNA unintentionally discover that ~10% of people are fathered by someone other than they think. The ethical dilemma of hiding/revealing this has led to this "risk" being added into informed consent forms for genetic studies.

8. Between 1932 and 1972 the US Government purposely let 600 African-Americans go untreated for syphilis in order to study the progression of the disease without their informed consent. (The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment)

9. The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was a British pro-paedophile activist group, founded in October 1974 and officially disbanded in 1984. The groupde campaigned for the age of consent to be removed/lowered to just 4 years.

10. Paedophile Information Exchange, a British activist group that advocated for Age of Consent be brought down to 4yrs or abolished. It contained high ranking members of the Labour Party and received grants of £70,000 from Home Office.Most members held high govt positions and some even knighted

Why informed consent is important in research?

You can easily fact check why is informed consent important in healthcare by examining the linked well-known sources.

H.R. 34 Section 3024 Clinical testing of investigational medical devices and drugs no longer requires the informed consent of the subjects

The American government did a 40-year research study on 600 black men, almost 400 with syphilis, without their informed consent. "Even when penicillin became the drug of choice for syphilis in 1947, researchers did not offer it to the subjects." The study didn't end until 1972. - source

The CIA performed experiments using LSD where they "administered LSD to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, and members of the general public to study their reactions....often administered without the subject's knowledge or informed consent" - source

Its possible to sue the doctors/hospital that performed a circumcision on you (even as a baby) if you did not give informed consent for the procedure