In a related area...
Last Thursday's NYTimes carried an article about a study of the
effectiveness of chilling the body on treatment of head trauma cases. About
half of the article was about the special form of consent used in the study.
Because it was not possible to get consent in advance (not knowing who would
suffer head trauma) nor from relatives quickly enough after the trauma to be
of help to the study, consent followed a new rule that has apparently been
in place for several years. The rule allows assumption of consent (my words,
not theirs...) on two conditions. First, the nature of the study and the
assumption of consent must be communicated to "the community", and second,
the relatives must be permitted to withdraw the subject from the study
immediately once they've learned of the participation. The article noted
that only happened in one case.
I'd never heard of this before (it wasn't discussed on TIPS and I
just deleted my way right past it, I hope...), and neither had several
others with whom I talked at MIToP last weekend. Most were curious about how
you'd go about "informing the community" (a point that was raised in the
article as well). Sure enough, Sunday evening a doctor appeared on one of my
local television stations to "inform the community" about a study of heart
attack victims that will take place in my area.
Has this been common, and I'm only just now noticing it?
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
