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Informed consent in emergency research. Consensus statement from the Coalition Conference of Acute Resuscitation and Critical Care Researchers.

OBJECTIVE: A coalition conference of acute resuscitation researchers was held to discuss the feasibility of applying current federal research regulations regarding informed consent to the emergency setting. This article presents consensus recommendations for regulatory changes for consent in emergency research. PARTICIPANTS: Representatives from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and the American Heart Association identified several professional organizations as stakeholders in this issue, including research, clinical, bioethics, legal, and patient advocacy groups. The Office for Protection From Research Risks (OPRR), the Food And Drug Administration (FDA), and staff from specific legislative offices were also invited to observe. Forty-three participants attended, including representatives from 12 professional organizations, five medical institutions, and the FDA and OPRR. This was a closed meeting. Participants were self-funded or sponsored by their professional organizations. EVIDENCE: Before the meeting, a draft of a position statement was developed by the conference organizers based on the current literature and discussions with experts in the field. This draft, copies of the current federal research regulations, and supporting articles were distributed before the conference. CONSENSUS PROCESS: Participants rotated through moderated discussion sessions to comment on subsections of the draft. Following discussion, a working draft was developed and distributed to each participant and represented organizational board for final review. All comments were considered in the final version of the document. CONCLUSIONS: We believe there are circumstances when it is not feasible to obtain prospective or proxy consent for enrollment into an emergency research protocol. In these circumstances, patients are vulnerable, not only to research risks, but also to being denied potentially beneficial therapy when there is no known effective treatment for their life-threatening condition. We offer recommendations that should be met when the critical nature of the illness or injury or the need to apply an investigational therapy rapidly precludes prospective consent for participation in emergency research.

Consensus

Ethical considerations in neuroclinical trials.

Ethical decision making in clinical trials has become increasingly emphasized at many levels of the review process. Ethical concepts applicable to Neuroclinical Trials (NCT) are reviewed. The discussion is directed towards ethical concerns that investigators must consider and justify prior to Institutional Review Board (IRB) submission. Risk-benefit analysis, methodology (randomization: placebo; design) and consent (informed; deferred; waived) are reviewed and Office for Protection from Research Risk (OPRR) guidelines are described. Our conclusions: Investigators proposing NCT face increasing ethical scrutiny by IRBs. Attention to ethical issues early in trial planning process is recommended.

Clinical Trials as Topic

Ethical considerations in clinical neuroscience. Current concepts in neuroclinical trials.

BACKGROUND: Ethical decision making in clinical trials has become increasingly emphasized at many levels of the review process. SUMMARY OF REVIEW: Ethical concepts applicable to neuroclinical trials are reviewed. The discussion is directed toward ethical concerns that investigators must consider and justify prior to institutional review board submission. Risk-benefit analysis, methodology (randomization, placebo, design), and consent (informed, deferred, waived) are reviewed and guidelines of the Office for Protection From Research Risk are described. CONCLUSIONS: Investigators proposing neuroclinical trials face increasing ethical scrutiny by institutional review boards. Attention to ethical issues early in the trial planning process is recommended.

Clinical Trials as Topic

The controversy over emergency research. A review of the issues and suggestions for a resolution.

Emergency research that occurs upon critically ill subjects in circumstances that do not allow the subjects or their legally authorized representatives to grant an informed consent is currently the subject of great controversy. This Clinical Commentary reviews three issues that dominate the debate: research risk assessment, the concept of a particular kind of risk called minimal risk, and the regulations governing research on human subjects. The theses of this article are that Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are not violating Office of Protection from Research Risks (OPRR) regulations, that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations do not adequately address research design, and that emergency research fits within the ethical standards of justice, respect for autonomy, and beneficence. To defend these claims, the following points are argued: risk assessment is a moral or transscientific exercise, minimal risk refers to the increment of risk that the subject of the research faces, and that when equipoise exists between experimental and standard therapies, this state of uncertainty contributes to a study's justifications. In order to resolve the emergency research controversy, certain regulations will need to be rewritten and others reinterpreted, and a national board created to review a proposed study's clinical relevance and whether the current state of knowledge justifies a trial.

Critical Illness

Cloning without prior approval: a response to recent disclosures of noncompliance.

In September 1994, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal published a special issue on the ethics of embryo splitting or "cloning," which included papers originally prepared for a workshop on embryo splitting sponsored by the National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction (NABER) and NABER's report, Human Cloning through Embryo Splitting. The impetus for the project was embryo-splitting research conducted by Drs. Jerry L. Hall, Robert J. Stillman, and others, at George Washington University and presented in October 1993 at a joint meeting of the American Fertility Society and the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society. Media coverage at the time reported that the research had been approved by the university's formal review committees. However, it came to light in December 1994 that the researchers had not obtained approval from the university's institutional review board prior to conducting the research. Following a university investigation, the researchers were disciplined and instructed to destroy their data. The university also voluntarily forwarded the records of the incident to the Office for Protection from Research Risks at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hall resigned from George Washington University in September 1994. In the following postscript to her article on the ethics of embryo splitting (KIEJ, September 1994), Ruth Macklin discusses these events. The letters and memoranda that she cites were obtained from NIH through the Freedom of Information Act.

Clone Cells

Protection of human subjects: categories of research that may be reviewed by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) through an expedited review procedure--FDA. Notice.

On November 10, 1997, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in consultation with the Office for Protection from Research Risks (OPRR) at the National Institutes of Health, requested written comments relating to the proposed republication of the list that identifies certain research activities involving human subjects that may be reviewed by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) through the expedited review procedure authorized in 21 CFR 56.110. The comment period closed on March 10, 1998. FDA and OPRR received a combined total of 108 comments. After a review of the comments, FDA and OPRR are now simultaneously publishing identical revised lists of categories of research activities that may be reviewed by the IRB through the expedited review procedure.

Human Experimentation

Ethical considerations in planning and conducting research on human subjects.

The ethical conduct of research on humans requires more than a caring researcher and a legalistic adherence to federal regulations. It requires good planning and managing of issues accruing from the research relationship--communication, risk and perception of risk, and benefits--to all who have a stake in the relationship and outcome. In 1978 the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research identified ethical principles that should govern research on humans. Institutional review boards (IRBs) now exist in every organization that receives federal funding for human-subjects research. Researchers have an obligation to study the requirements of their IRB when they plan their research. Further, they must establish appropriate procedures for obtaining informed consent and assessing risk, risk perception, and ways to increase the benefits of research.

Advisory Committees

Updating protections for human subjects involved in research. Project on Informed Consent, Human Research Ethics Group.

For decades, all federally funded research involving human subjects has been subject to regulations that require the informed consent of the subject and oversight by the local institution. These regulations last underwent major revision in 1981 and have remained unchanged despite significant changes in the nature of clinical science, the financial sources of research support, and the institutional environment in which clinical research is conducted. In the intervening years, doubt has evolved as to whether the regulations currently in place adequately protect the welfare and rights of research subjects in today's clinical research environment and whether the costs, in terms of time, bureaucracy, and delay, are justified by the level of protection afforded. The Human Research Ethics Group, administered by the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, extensively reviewed the status of existing human subjects protections with the aim of making recommendations to improve and reform the regulations. Here, we present recommendations constituting a consensus of the group members for reform in 3 key areas: protecting subject populations with special needs and vulnerabilities, oversight by institutional review boards, and regulatory policy.

Advisory Committees

Emergency medicine and the development of the Food and Drug Administration's final rule on informed consent and waiver of informed consent in emergency research circumstances.

This article reviews the federal regulations for emergency and acute resuscitation research in effect prior to October 1996, the historical issues that contributed to the development of these regulations, the controversies that arose surrounding the application of these regulations to emergency research circumstances, and the methods by which the regulations were changed. The new regulations introduced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also are reviewed.

Disclosure