Arguments Against Informed Consent

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Informed consent is a very interesting subject. It helps sort the legitimate scientists and doctors from the corrupt ones, who are taking advantage of their patients. Even though it really shouldn’t be, informed consent is still a debated topic to this day, and both sides of the argument both have different yet reasonable points. Reasonable or not, there are many examples and cases through medical history where doctors didn’t take human rights under consideration, and did some very questionable testing. Although both sides of the argument are valid, having informed consent is the correct thing to do. Informed consent requires doctors to tell someone about all of the risks and details of a procedure that they are having and whether or not …show more content…

They are against informed consent for reasons being that in the case of emergencies, people sometimes can't give consent to operate on them. If the informed consent law is in full effect, doctors can't do anything about it. Also, they are afraid of risk of bias from people who do not support the medical field, yet still require treatment, (Tobias). These people do not believe that doctors want to help. With the bleak history of medicine, they think the medical field is completely corrupt. The issue of this being that these people sometimes get seriously injured, and need medical help but do not want it. Also, the oppositions argue that people should have a right to deciding what is right or wrong. In a particularly recent informed consent case, the scientists performed illegal medical research on sick cancer patients without anyone's consent, (Chretien). They argued that they wanted to push along the growth of cures for cancer and other diseases. They knew that the university wouldn't approve so they kept it secret. In the mid 90's, regulations were passed that allowed treatment to occur without patient's permission, (Lundstrom). The terms of this happening were that the patient must be in a life-threatening condition, their current care/medication is not working, and they must be unable to give permission for treatment. If informed consent is in effect, doctors can not carry out their research, even if it has no threat to the human body. Some doctors and researchers are afraid that if informed consent continues to be a rule, advancements in medicine will change to a substantially slower

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