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While checking in last month for an appointment with my doctor, I was handed a clipboard and pen and asked to sign a Terms and Conditions of Service form.
With a bit of time on my hands, I decided to actually read the document, instead of just checking the box and signing it. I was half reading and half listening to the Cooking Channel tell me how to make the perfect polenta when I reached point 4: "I also understand that my medical information and tissues, fluids, cells and other specimens (collectively, "Specimens") that UCSF may collect during the course of my treatment and care may be used and shared with researchers."
Surely, I thought, this must be wrong. It wasn't the idea that researchers might use my tissues for research that startled me. It was the phrase "I understand."
For decades, the question of whether and under what conditions medical professionals should collect human tissue samples for research has raised complicated ethical questions that are far from settled and certainly are not easy to understand.
I have spent two...
With a bit of time on my hands, I decided to actually read the document, instead of just checking the box and signing it. I was half reading and half listening to the Cooking Channel tell me how to make the perfect polenta when I reached point 4: "I also understand that my medical information and tissues, fluids, cells and other specimens (collectively, "Specimens") that UCSF may collect during the course of my treatment and care may be used and shared with researchers."
Surely, I thought, this must be wrong. It wasn't the idea that researchers might use my tissues for research that startled me. It was the phrase "I understand."
For decades, the question of whether and under what conditions medical professionals should collect human tissue samples for research has raised complicated ethical questions that are far from settled and certainly are not easy to understand.
I have spent two...
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