title: Using human tissue: when do we need consent?
abstract: Identifiable excess surgical tissue is an important resource for medical research but we have become overly restrictive about consent requirements. I suggest we devolve consent to ethics committees for ordinary research projects involving human tissue, retaining the requirement for explicit consent only for those sensitive research situations where there is significant risk of harm to individual interests in privacy.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052 Australia. lisa.parker@unsw.edu.au
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Parker
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000941:ethics; D028744:Ethics Committees, Research / Q000941:ethics; D032984:Ethics, Research; D013502:General Surgery; D006805:Human Experimentation; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent / Q000941:ethics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D018907:Privacy; D014015:Tissue Banks / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*