Biobanks are repositories of human biological materials collected for biomedical research. There are over 300 million stored specimens in the United States, and the number grows by 20 million per year. In the post-genome world of high throughput gene sequencing and computational biology, biobanks hold the promise of facilitating large-scale research studies. New organizational and operational models of research repositories also raise complex issues of big science, big business, and big ethical concerns.

Large prospective biobanks are being established containing DNA, lifestyle and health information in order to study the relationship between diseases, genes and environment. Informed consent is a central component of research ethics protection. Disclosure of information about the research is an essential element of seeking informed consent. Within biobanks, it is not possible at recruitment to describe in detail the information that will subsequently be collected because people will not know which disease they will develop. It will also be difficult (...) to describe the specific research that will be performed using the biobank, other than to stipulate categories of research or diseases that are not included. Potential subjects can only be given information about the sorts of research that will be performed and by whom. Organisations responsible for biobanks usually argue that this disclosure of information is adequate when seeking informed consent, especially if coupled with a right to withdraw, as it would not be feasible or it would be too expensive to seek consent renewal on a regular basis. However, there are concerns about this ‘blanket consent’ approach’. Consent waivers have also been proposed in which research subjects entrust their consent with an independent third party to decide whether subsequent research using the biobank is consistent with the original consent provided by the subject. (shrink)

In the Middle Ages there were gaols and dungeons, but punishment was for the most part a spectacle. The economic changes and growing popular dissent of the 18th century made necessary a more systematic control over the individual members of society, and this in effect meant a change from punishment, which chastised the body, to reform, which touched the soul.

Background Genetic databases are becoming increasingly common as a means of determining the relationship between lifestyle, environmental exposures and genetic diseases. These databases rely on large numbers of research subjects contributing their genetic material to successfully explore the genetic basis of disease. However, as all possible research questions that can be posed of the data are unknown, an unresolved ethical issue is the status of informed consent for future research uses of genetic material. Discussion In this paper, we discuss the (...) difficulties of an informed consent model for future ineffable uses of genetic data. We argue that variations on consent, such as presumed consent, blanket consent or constructed consent fail to meet the standards required by current informed consent doctrine and are distortions of the original concept. In this paper, we propose the concept of an authorization model whereby participants in genetic data banks are able to exercise a certain amount of control over future uses of genetic data. We argue this preserves the autonomy of individuals at the same time as allowing them to give permission and discretion to researchers for certain types of research. Summary The authorization model represents a step forward in the debate about informed consent in genetic databases. The move towards an authorization model would require changes in the regulatory and legislative environments. Additionally, empirical support of the utility and acceptability of authorization is required. (shrink)

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