Institutional review boards (IRBs) have the responsibility to ensure the protection of human-research subjects and are legally liable if they fail to do so.
Physicians’ ethical obligations to disclose conflicts of interest to patients and to obtain their informed consent for treatment are particularly critical when proposed treatments are experimental.
Dr Noah Boton joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Dr Jeffrey Larnard: “When Should Patients at the End of Life Get Antimicrobials?”
Clinical trials for the blood substitute PolyHeme exposed the possibility for ambiguous interpretation of the FDA’s waiver of informed consent for emergency research.