Insights From Empirical Research on the Clinical Trials Industry
2006 September
Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal
16
(3)
: 251-268
DOI: 10.1353/ken.2006.0018
PMCID: PMC2952303
This paper provides a simultaneously reflexive and analytical framework to think about obstacles to truly informed consent in social science and biomedical research. To do so, it argues that informed consent often goes awry due to procedural misconceptions built into the research context. The concept of procedural misconception is introduced to describe how individuals respond to what is familiar in research settings and overlook what is different. In the context of biomedical research, procedural misconceptions can be seen to function as root causes of therapeutic misconceptions.