Use of Personal Health Information under Consent – Exempt Circumstances for Research: Views of the Australian General Public

Many human research regulatory systems permit human research to be undertaken without rst gaining informed consent. In the Australian context, a “waiver of the consent requirement” may be granted by a Human Research Ethics Committee where research would be otherwise “impracticable” and there is “no known or likely reason” for thinking participants would not have consented. In this article, results of a national survey of Australian adults are presented to illustrate the general public’s view of such “consent-exempt” research. The results show that despite strong support for medical research, the general public is deeply reticent regarding consent exemption. Moreover, the results indicate that members of the general public do not believe there is a general obligation to participate in research, that the threshold for accepting consent exemption on the basis of “impracticability” is very high, and presumed consent can only be safely relied upon as a justi cation in very limited circumstances