The Ethics Blog

A blog from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)

Tag: samples (Page 3 of 4)

Research for the sake of the patient

7 September, 2012 / / 0 Comments

We regularly tell strangers about sensitive aspects of our lives. We do it every time we visit the doctor. We do it without hesitating, in spite of the fact that the information won’t stay with the doctor to whom we give it.

The information is archived and will be read by health care staff in the future, when we visit a hospital again. As patients, we are satisfied with this state of affairs. Typically, we are happy that our samples are saved for future use, and that research is being done on our data to improve the quality of the care.

It is obvious to us that these actions are taken for our sake as patients, or as future patients.

However, when the same kind of data is collected for similar overall purposes, but outside of the health care sector, in the construction of biobanks and registers for future medical research, it suddenly becomes more tempting to worry about the safety of our data.

In spite of the fact that the researchers’ information about us

  1. normally is less comprehensive than in the doctor’s journal,
  2. is coded so that the connection to us is as safe as in a bank vault,
  3. isn’t used to do research on us individually, but to explore human patterns of disease,

a tendency to imagine nightmarish scenarios of surveillance appears. – Why?

One reason could be an assumption that researchers only want to answer their own questions. They don’t do research for our sake. They are curious and need our support to realize their own research goals.

Another reason could be an assumption that if medical research has commendable purposes related to health and health care, these purposes are very general and societal: Improved Public Health; Decreased Health Care Costs; A Flourishing Pharmaceutical Sector etc.

Who cares about little me?

When I visit the doctor, the connection to my own health and care is obvious. When I donate blood to the biobank for future research, on the other hand, the connection to me as a patient, or as a future patient, is less obvious.

Still, today’s health care depends on yesterday’s research.

The information I give the doctor would not help me a bit as a patient, if millions had not already provided medical research with their data. My doctor wouldn’t even be able to suggest a diagnosis, or recommend an effective treatment.

I believe we need to defuse the issue of personal data in biobanks and research registers; calm down our tendency to think that the information is collected without regard to us, and for wholly different purposes than in health care. Even in research, our data are collected for our sake: so that we, the day we visit the hospital and tell the doctor about our troubles, can expect well-founded diagnoses and effective treatments.

If you want to reflect more about our interest as future patients that there is ongoing biobank and register research, I want to recommend a coming dissertation:

  • Biobank Research – Individual Rights and Public Benefit

Author is Joanna Stjernschantz Forsberg at CRB, who defends her dissertation the 6th of October in Uppsala.

I also want to recommend the interactive conference, HandsOn: Biobanks, in Uppsala 20-21 September, which tries to illuminate the values of biobanking. You can register for the conference until the 11th of September.

Pär Segerdahl

We challenge habits of thought : the Ethics Blog

What do donors need to know about future research?

22 July, 2012 / / 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

Approaching future issues - the Ethics Blog

“The Route” is taking shape

27 June, 2012 / / 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

I want to contribute to research, not subscribe to genetic information

31 May, 2012 / / 0 Comments

What do researchers owe participants in biobank research?

One answer is that researchers should share relevant incidental findings about participants with these helpful individuals. Returning such information could support a sense of partnership and acknowledge participants’ extremely valuable contribution to research.

I’m doubtful about this answer, however. I’m inclined to think that return of information might estrange participants from the research to which they want to contribute.

Certainly, if researchers discover a tumor but don’t identify and contact the participant, that would be problematic. But incidental findings in biobank research typically concern difficult to interpret genetic risk factors. Should these elusive figures be communicated to participants?

Samples may moreover be reused many times in different biobank projects. A relevant incidental finding about me may not be made until a decade after I gave the sample. By then I may have forgotten that I gave it.

Do I want to be seen as a biobank partner that long after I gave the sample? Do I want my contribution to research to be acknowledged years afterwards in the form of percentages concerning increased disease risks? Wasn’t it sufficient with the attention and the health information that I received when I gave the sample: when I actually MADE my contribution?

Personally, I’m willing to contribute to research by giving blood samples, answering questions, and undergoing health examinations. But if that means also getting a lifelong subscription to genetic information about me, I’m beginning to hesitate.

That’s not what I wanted, when I wanted to contribute to research.

Realizing that my blood sample rendered a lifelong subscription to genetic information would estrange me from what I thought I was doing. Can’t one simply contribute to research?

But other participants might want the information. Should biobank research then offer them subscription services?

Pär Segerdahl

We like challenging questions - the ethics blog

Research with my data, but not about me

3 May, 2012 / / 3 Comments

It is perplexing how the websites of large internet companies continuously adapt to me. It looks like the entire business activity of Amazon was about the musical artists I listened to yesterday.

These companies evidently collect data about what I search out on their websites and automatically adapt to my computer, making the presentation of products as attractive as possible to me.

It is rather annoying to get one’s own internet history in the face like that.

The example illustrates a common property of personal data. When data about me are collected, the data sooner or later return to me: in the form of an adapted website; in the form of a demand to pay tax arrears; or in the form of more expensive insurance premiums.

No one would bother to collect my data if they did not intend to return to me on the basis of the data.

Me, me, me: my data are about me. Sooner or later they come back to me.

There is, however, one brilliant exception from my data’s stubborn tendency to return to me: research. When researchers collect my blood sample or ask questions about my health, they are not interested in my person. My data will not return to me in any form.

Researchers are interested in general patterns that can be discerned in data from thousands of people. If researchers should return to participants, it is to collect further data that (for example) can make the patterns of ageing appear.

Patterns, patterns, patterns: research is about patterns. It is not about any one of us who supplied the data.

I’m therefore inclined to see research registers as categorically distinct from the tax authorities’ data about my incomes. Researchers launch my data up into a depersonalized scientific space. Up there, my data hover weightlessly and my person cannot attract them back to me. They do research with my data. But it is not about me.

I don’t primarily have in mind the fact that researchers code my data so that the connection to me is obscured. I’m thinking of the elementary fact that they collect my data without any intention of returning to me on the basis of the data.

When the integrity of research participants is debated, it is important to keep this unique status of research registers in mind. The purpose of collecting scientific data about me is not at all about me. The purpose “scientific research” disentangles me from my own data.

Biobank research here encounters a difficulty.

Suppose that researchers discover in my blood sample a genetic disposition for a disease that can be prevented if measures are taken in advance. Should they then take down my data from their depersonalized orbit in scientific space, and inform me about the disposition?

It may seem obvious that they should inform me. But it would simultaneously be a departure from how science typically treats personal data without intention of returning to participants on the basis of the data.

How should biobank researchers handle discoveries about individual participants that may save their future health? This important and difficult question will be investigated in the dissertation work of our most recent doctoral student at CRB, Jennifer Viberg.

I’m certain that the Ethics Blog will return many times to Jennifer’s work on incidental findings in biobank research.

Pär Segerdahl

We like challenging questions - the ethics blog

Interactive conference seeks the value of biobanking

20 April, 2012 / / 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:

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

Blood samples to be destroyed in Minnesota

10 February, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Privacy concerns and public health endeavours sometimes clash with each other.

A recent example comes from the state of Minnesota.  After a ruling from the state’s supreme court, one has begun to destroy blood samples taken routinely from newborns in  a screening program. The practice is seen as a violation of privacy, since consent was not obtained first.

Read more in Science, News of the Week.

Pär Segerdahl

Henrietta Lacks and the power of rhetoric

3 February, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Paradoxically, the victim can have the most powerful position, namely, as a “rhetorical figure.”

I sense this rhetorical power in Rebecca Skloot’s bestselling book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I think less freely under the spell of this rhetoric. My thoughts are not allowed to discover new aspects of things. Questions are being silenced and the direction of my “reasoning” is predestined.

Who dares to be scrutinizing in the confrontation with the tear-jerking language that occurs on the author’s website for the book? This could be the lyrics of a whole genre of sad songs.

We read and write about Henrietta Lacks as if we were spellbound.

The most spellbound of all seem to be the reviewers of the book. Many excel in morbid presentations of a both dead and living body abducted by science; of a poor black woman who anonymously “paid the price” for a whole series of profitable medical discoveries and innovations.

Who wouldn’t yield to the temptation?

As a result, however, obvious questions are silenced. For example: Is it not wonderful that she was anonymous (until the publication of the bestseller)? Is it not splendid that scientists speak of “HeLa cells” and not about “Henrietta Lacks’ cells”? Wasn’t her integrity protected that way (until the publication of the bestseller)?

We don’t know how Henrietta Lacks would have described her destiny. Would she describe herself as a victim of science (rather than as a victim of cancer, for example)? Or has she become one of the most recent victims of the enchanting rhetoric of the victim?

(I wish to thank Joanna Forsberg for inspiration. A comment of hers on our Swedish Etikbloggen helped break the spell for me and gave birth to this post.)

Pär Segerdahl

The temptation of rhetoric - the ethics blog

Australians want to biobank

27 January, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Creating biobanks for future research is sometimes debated as if such investments seriously threatened sample donors’ integrity.

In Sweden, the Data Inspection Board even decided that it is against the law to collect biological samples and personal health data “for future research.” Participants cannot give their consent to anything that vague, they argued.

This distrustfulness may be out of touch with public perceptions, however, judging from a recent Australian study. The Australian researchers report “a high level of trust in university biobanks” and “a strong willingness to participate in biobank research.”

Don’t people know one cannot trust anything that vague?

Pär Segerdahl

We like challenging findings - The ethics blog

Can infrastructure for biobank research make ethical notions obsolete?

2 January, 2012 / / 0 Comments

In a comment to what I posted earlier about the decision of the Swedish Data Inspection Board to stop LifeGene, Åke Thörn asks what I mean by saying that

  • “LifeGene represents a new reality in the making.”

Since the question has deep interest, I want to answer it here, in a new post. I will use a simile to explain my intended meaning.

Suppose that rather than discussing biobank ethics, we were playing a form of chess with the strange feature that the chessboard sometimes changes. Squares turn into circles. Or the entire chessboard turns into a rhomb.

These changes of the chessboard make the old rules obsolete. What is “straight” and what is “diagonal” on a chessboard with the shape of a rhomb? The rules need to be reconsidered!

Research ethics and ethical review can be compared to games played on chessboards that sometimes change and require that rules and basic notions are reconsidered. What I meant in my previous post was that LifeGene represents such a basic change of the research ethical chessboard.

How should the “aim” of biobank infrastructure be described, given that infrastructure is not a research project with the aims of individual biobank projects? Do people turn into “research participants” when their ten-year old blood samples are used in new studies?

We cannot always cherish old ethical notions – as if there were no such things as TIME and CHANGE. We sometimes need to rethink rules and basic notions.

I hope these considerations explain my understanding of ethics as sensitive to changing times, and my notion of LifeGene as a “new reality.”

Pär Segerdahl

We challenge habits of thought : the Ethics Blog

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