Tag: consent (Page 5 of 6)

Genetic exceptionalism and unforgivingness

30 August, 2012 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

What fuels the tendency to view genetic information as exceptionally private and sensitive? Is information about an individual’s genetic disposition for eye color more sensitive than the fact that he has blue eyes?

In Rethinking Informed Consent in Bioethics, Neil C. Manson and Onora O’Neill make heroic efforts against an avalanche of arguments for genetic exceptionalism. For each argument meant to reveal how uniquely private, how exceptionally sensitive, and how extraordinarily risky genetic information is, Manson and O’Neill find elucidating examples, analogies and comparisons that cool down tendencies to exaggerate genetic information as incomparably dangerous.

What fuels the exceptionalism that Manson and O’Neill fight? They suggest that it has to do with metaphors that tempt us to reify information; temptations that, for various reasons, are intensified when we think about DNA. Once again, their analysis is clarifying.

Another form of genetic exceptionalism strikes me, however; one that has less to do with information. I’m thinking of GMO exceptionalism. For thousands of years, humans improved plants and animals through breeding them. This traditional way of modifying organisms is not without environmental risks. When analogous risks appear with GMO, however, they tend to change meaning and become seen as extraordinary risks, revealing the ineradicable riskiness of genetic manipulation.

Why are we prepared to embrace traditionally modified organisms, TMO, when basically the same risks with GMO make us want to exterminate every genetically manipulated bastard?

Unforgivingness. I believe that this all-too familiar emotional response drives genetic exceptionalism, and many other forms of exceptionalism.

Consider the response of becoming unforgiving. Yesterday we laughed with our friend. Today we learn that he spread rumors about us. His familar smile immediately acquires a different meaning. Yesterday it was shared joy. Today it is an ugly mask hiding an intrinsically untrustworthy individual who must be put in quarantine forever. Every trait of character turns into a defect of character. The whole person becomes an objection; an exception among humans.

Manson and O´Neill are right when they analyze a tendency to reify information in genetic exceptionalism. But I want to suggest that what fuels this tendency, what makes us more than willing to yield to the temptation, is an emotional state of mind that also produces many other forms of exceptionalism.

We need to acknowledge the emotional dimension of philosophical and ethical thinking. We don’t think well when we are unforgiving towards our subject matter. We think dogmatically and unjustly.

In their efforts to think well about genetic information, Manson and O’Neill can be understood as doing forgiveness work.

They calm us down and patiently show us that our friend, although he sometimes does wrong, is not that intrinsically bad character we want to see him as, when we are in our unfortunate unforgiving state of mind.

We are helped towards a state of mind where we can think more freely and justly about the risks and benefits of genetics.

Pär Segerdahl

What is philosophy?

17 August, 2012 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Someone asked me what philosophy is. I answered by trying to pinpoint the most frequently used word when one philosophizes.

What does a philosopher most often say? I believe he or she most often says, “But…”:

“But is that really true?”
“But shouldn’t then…?”
“But can’t one imagine that…?”
“But how can anyone know such a thing?”
Etc.

Always some unexpected obstacle! Just at the moment when your reasoning seems entirely spotless, an annoying “but…?” knocks you to the ground and you have to start all over again.

Confronted with our spontaneous reasoning, a philosopher’s head soon fills with objections. Perplexing questions lead into unknown territory. Maps must be drawn the need of which we never anticipated. A persistently repeated “but…?” reveals challenges for which we lack preparedness.

But the goal is not that of interminably objecting. Objecting and being perplexed are not intrinsic values.

Rather the contrary. The accumulation of objections is a precondition to there being a goal with philosophizing: that of putting an END to the annoying objections.

Philosophy is a fight with one’s own objections; the goal is to silence them.

But if that is so, what point can philosophy have? An activity that first raises annoying objections, and then tries to silence them: what’s that good for!?

Try to reason about what “consent to future research” means. Then you’ll probably notice that you soon start repeating “but…?” with regard to your own attempts to reason well. Your objections will annoy you and spur you to think even more clearly. You will draw maps the need of which you had not anticipated.

Even if we prefer that we never went astray, we do go astray. It pertains to being human. THEN we see the point with persistently asking “but…?”; THEN we see the purpose with crisscrossing confusing aspects of life until we survey them, haunted by objections from an unyielding form of sincerity.

When we finally manage to silence our irritating objections, philosophy has made itself as superfluous as a map would be when we cross our own street…

…until we go astray again.

Pär Segerdahl

What do donors need to know about future research?

22 July, 2012 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

I’m reading a Scientific American Guest Blog, on the ethics of future-use DNA sampling. Donating DNA to research is described as a more lasting donation than donating organs or embryos: DNA is information and information can last longer.

That donating DNA is such a lasting donation seems to imply that the future use to which the DNA can be put to use is more open. Who knows what information future researchers might be able to obtain from DNA donated today?

The author of the guest blog, Ricki Lewis, asks how consent can be obtained for DNA sampling intended for future genetic research.

She rejects the view that researchers must know in advance where the research might lead and inform donors about it; and if research takes unforeseen directions years or decades after the donation, researchers must contact donors again for renewed consent.

This view is rejected because knowing where research might lead “is not how science works.” And renewed consent would be “confusing, disturbing, and likely expensive.” – I agree.

Ricki Lewis’s own solution is the following:

“…informed consent documents should state that the sample might be used in the future to get information unknown today. Participants or patients can agree, or not sign.”

Both solutions seem to operate on a level that strikes me as less relevant to DNA donors.

People who donate DNA to science probably want to contribute to research that can improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of various diseases. That is the level at which they are concerned about the future use of their DNA: the level of the practical significance of the research.

The exact scientific path that future research takes is less relevant to donors, I believe, as long as the research has the kind of practical significance that motivates their donation. And to ask for consent to do science as science is done – without knowing in advance where it might lead – could be confusing.

I also wonder: could a consent form that emphasizes the open and unpredictable nature of scientific research be misused on the practical level that probably concern donors more?

Pär Segerdahl

“The Route” is taking shape

27 June, 2012 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Our plans for the interactive part of the conference program for HandsOn: Biobanks, in Uppsala 20-21 September 2012, are taking shape. This part of the program is called “the Route.”

During coffee and lunch breaks, participants can walk through an interactive exhibition illustrating the process of informed consent, data and sample sharing, and new legislation.

Within the Route, participants can also meet law scholars, ethicists, biobank researchers and journalists. They can listen to and participate in conversations on a broad range of issues, such as the role or trust in biobank research, handling of incidental findings, patents, and regulatory processes.

Finally, the LifeGene debate will be discussed with representatives from LifeGene, EpiHealth, the Swedish Data Inspection Board, and the Central Ethical Review Board.

Curious? Do you want to partake in the Route?

Registration is open until September 11.

Pär Segerdahl

Handling mistaken trust when doctors recruit patients as research participants

14 June, 2012 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Patients seem more willing to participate in biobank research than the general public. A possible explanation is the doctor-patient relationship. Patients’ trust in health care professionals might help doctors to recruit them as research participants, perhaps making the task too easy.

That trust in doctors can induce a willingness to participate in research seems threatening to the notion of well-informed autonomous decision making. Can sentiments of trust be allowed to play such a prominent role in these processes?

Rather than dismissing trust as a naïve and irrational sentiment, a new article distinguishes between adequate and mistaken trust, and argues that being trusted implies a duty to compensate for mistaken trust.

The article in Bioethics is written by Linus Johnsson at CRB, together with Gert Helgesson, Mats G. Hansson and Stefan Eriksson.

The article discusses tree forms of mistaken trust:

Misplaced trust: Trusted doctors may lack relevant knowledge of biobank research (for example, about the protection of privacy).
Irrational trust: Patients may be mistaken about why they trust the doctor (the doctor may actually be a form of father or mother figure for the patient).
Inappropriate trust: Patients may inappropriately expect doctors always to play the role of therapists and fail to see that doctors sometimes play the role of research representatives who ask patients to contribute to the common good.

The idea in the paper, if I understand it, is that instead of dismissing trust because it might easily be mistaken in these ways, we need to acknowledge that being trusted implies a duty to handle the potentiality of mistaken trust.

Trust is not a one-sided sentiment: it creates responsibilities in the person who is trusted. If doctors take these responsibilities seriously, the relationship of trust immediately begins to look… well, more trustworthy and rational.

How can mistaken forms of trust be compensated for?

Misplaced trust in doctors can be compensated for by developing the relevant expertise (or by dispelling the illusion that one has it). Irrational trust can be compensated for by supporting the patient’s reasoning and moral agency. Inappropriate trust can be compensated for by nurturing a culture with normative expectations that doctors play more than one role; a culture where patients can expect to be asked by the doctor if they want to contribute to the common good.

If patients’ trust is seen in conjunction with these corresponding moral responsibilities of doctors, the relationship of trust can be understood as supporting the patients’ own decision making rather than undermining it.

That, at least, is how I understood this subtle philosophical treatment of trust and its role when patients are recruited by doctors as participants in biobank research.

Pär Segerdahl

Interactive conference seeks the value of biobanking

20 April, 2012 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

I have the privilege of belonging to a group of ethicists and law scholars that currently discuss how to visualize ethical and legal dimensions of biobanking.

We organize an interactive part of the scientific conference program for HandsOn: Biobanks in September. The conference invites participants to Uppsala to explore the values of biobanking and to take part in its interactive exhibition.

Biobanking is hot in medicine. There are hopes that it will substantially improve diagnosis, treatment and prevention of widespread as well as rare diseases. At the same time, however, the route to such values is difficult to survey, and the goals of large biobank investments are not always entirely transparent.

HandsOn: Biobanks is an ambitious attempt to explore and visualize the values of biobanking and the path towards them.

The conference asks: What are the values sought after? How can they be achieved in practice? There are the ethical, legal, scientific and commercial challenges, but there are also challenges for the industry. How can biobanking affect public trust in medical research and industry?

The conference combines keynote presentations with idea labs and educational sessions. The interactive part of the conference where I participate is called “the Route.” It follows the research process from ethical review, consent, sampling, storage and analysis, to end results that hopefully add value in ethics and trust, in clinical practice, in health economy, and in drug development.

If you want to participate in this interactive conference and help us better understand the values of biobanking, or simply are curious to see how we manage to solve the tricky problem of visualizing ethical and legal aspects – keep these dates in mind:

Early bird and student fee deadline: May 10
Deadline for abstracts: May 10
Registration deadline: September 11
Conference: 20-21 September 2012, Uppsala, Sweden
Pre-conference (International Biobanking Summit): 19 September

We are in the midst of brainstorming “the Route.” I hope that future blog posts can share with you some of the ethical and legal issues that we want to visualize and make accessible to participant interaction.

Registration is open – hope to see you in September!

Pär Segerdahl

The Swedish government announced new rules for research registers

29 February, 2012 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Will new Swedish rules for research registers enable LifeGene to continue?

In December 2011, the Swedish Data Inspection Board (DI) decided that the large biobank investment LifeGene is against the law.

In its motivation, DI focused on the purpose of the data collection and the information to participants about this purpose. According to DI, LifeGene’s purpose – “future research” – is too unspecific to be in accordance with the Personal Data Act.

Yesterday (February 28), the Swedish government announced new rules for research registers. These rules are supposed to enable LifeGene to continue. If you read Swedish, you might want to study the government’s press release.

I am not a legal expert, but it seems to me that even if the government’s new rules can make LifeGene lawful as a research register, other laws become relevant when the register is being used in research… for example, the Personal Data Act, surveyed by DI.

I happen to believe that LifeGene’s purpose can be interpreted as being sufficiently specific even for the demands of the Personal Data Act. LifeGene does not bluntly state “future research” as its purpose, but specifies the kind of diseases that will be studied, as well as the goal of creating new tools to prevent, diagnose, and treat these diseases.

Karolinska Institutet (that administers LifeGene) has appealed against DI’s decision to stop LifeGene. If DI does not withdraw its decision, my uncertain layman guess is that the result of this legal process might still be relevant for the possibility of continuing LifeGene as planned.

Pär Segerdahl

Protecting children: through research or from research?

20 January, 2012 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Children pose a dizzyingly difficult problem for research ethics.

One of the most important tasks of research ethics is the protection of human research participants. This significant aim is realized above all through the requirement of proper information and consent procedures.

But children often cannot be protected though these means. They are too young to understand information about research and to give their own autonomous consent.

Children often are excluded from medical research. Since they cannot be protected by the standard ethical precautions, they can be protected only by being excluded from research, so to speak.

The result, however, is that “experimentation” on children in practice moves elsewhere. It moves to the prescription of medical substances to sick children in health care.

We often don’t know the side-effects of medical substances in children; at least not as well as we know them in adults. We often don’t know what dosages are required in children to gain the sought-after effect. We often don’t know when the dosages become toxic.

As a consequence of this, medical prescriptions to children lack the scientific evidence that we have for adult patients. Moreover, when children become sick, they may be “protected” as patients by being denied what could be the most effective medical treatment. Doctors cannot prescribe potent medical substances to children if they don’t know their effects in the body of a child.

The dizzying difficulty can perhaps be simplified thus:

Adults can be ethically protected as research participants. Therefore, scientific knowledge is gained that protects them as patients too.
We cannot protect children as research participants. Therefore, we cannot protect them as patients either (at least not as well as we protect adult patients)

There is growing concern among ethicists about this situation. More knowledge is needed about children’s responses to various medical treatments. Otherwise they cannot be given the best possible treatments when they are patients. That, however, requires more clinical research with children. – But how can we ethically justify such research?

The problem is discussed in the current issue of The American Journal of Bioethics. A target article by David Wendler is followed by seven open peer commentaries.

If you are interested in the problematic, I strongly recommend reading this discussion and considering whether the attempted justifications get to the root of the dizzying problem. One thing is clear, though:

Protecting children ethically by excluding them from research participation is not the unambiguously good deed it may appear to be.

Pär Segerdahl

The Swedish Data Inspection Board stops large biobank

20 December, 2011 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Swedish biobank research suffered serious defeat last week. The Swedish Data Inspection Board decided that the ongoing collection of biological samples and health data to the large biobank LifeGene is against the law.

Karolinska Institutet (that runs LifeGene) must now stop collecting further data and is not allowed use already collected data. The reason for the decision is said to be the loosely formulated purpose of LifeGene: “future research.” Participants cannot give consent to anything that vague, the Data Inspection Board argues.

Well, that openness happens to be the point of this new type of biobank!

LifeGene is not a research project, nor is it part of a research project. LifeGene is intended as infrastructure of future biobank projects. Researchers are invited to apply for access to the biobank within specific studies of, for example, genetic and environmental risk factors for widespread diseases.

The more specifically formulated research purposes enter later in the process!

Collecting hundreds of thousands of biological samples and health data anew, each time researchers want to ambitiously study widespread diseases, is unfeasible. Therefore, LifeGene was developed as standing infrastructure of such biobank research in the future.

… And now it has been decided that developing such infrastructure is illegal. Because the purpose cannot be specified as in the research projects that later use the biobank!

This is a category mistake, as philosophers say when what is fundamentally distinct is conflated. In this case, research infrastructure is conflated with research projects.

Other posts about biobanks on this blog are directly related to the risk of the decision that the Swedish Data Inspection Board made:

My views can be summarized in two simple points:

Infrastructure for biobank research must not be treated as if it were one of the projects meant to use it.
My given blood sample does not make me a research participant (who must give consent each time the sample is used).

LifeGene represents a new reality in the making. It remains for the authorities, for legislators, and for all of us to better understand it!

Pär Segerdahl

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