During the last 25 years public policy in the UK has aimed to replace 'club' cultures and their supposedly suspect reliance on trust between professionals and public with a new public culture based on accountability and 'transparency'. These transformations have changed both clinical practice and public health policy in deep ways. Are the new conceptions of accountability adequate? Are obligati...

In industrialised countries, certain biomedical innovations have come into general use, but the ways they are used vary considerably. Prenatal screening techniques for Down's syndrome are a perfect example of this. In 2010, screening rates stood at 61% in England and 84% in France; the previous year the rate was 26% in the Netherlands. The objective of our research, which took place in these th...

SCOPE To discuss the rationale behind informed consent in clinical trials focusing on vulnerable patients from a European and German viewpoint. METHODS Scientific literature search via PubMed, Medline, Google. RESULTS Voluntary informed consent is the cornerstone of policies regulating clinical trials. To enroll a patient into a clinical trial without having obtained written and signed cons...

New scientific discoveries and new technologies soon challenge our old ways of proceeding and thinking. It is no surprise then that new knowledge in molecular genetics and the ensuing developments in genetic technology bring with them new modes of thought, not just in science and medicine, but also in ethics, law and public policy. One tradition that is being challenged at the moment is the not...

BACKGROUND Hospitals struggle to make informed consent processes understandable for patients. Amid "promising practices" for patient-centered communication, there is debate over how to handle consent processes for patients with limited literacy, health literacy, or English proficiency. METHODS In 2005, the American Medical Association's Ethical Force Program and the American Hospital Associat...

INTRODUCTION According to the Declaration of Helsinki and other guidelines, clinical studies should be approved by a research ethics committee and seek valid informed consent from the participants. Editors of medical journals are encouraged by the ICMJE and COPE to include requirements for these principles in the journal's instructions for authors. This study assessed the editorial policies of ...