Deceased human bodies are donated for education and research. Informed consent has become the standard for research on the living. A question could be asked on how informed are the donors and their families about the process before this generous gift is given. The aim of this study is to evaluate and compare the published donation forms used by body donation programs in the United States and assess them according to the guidelines published by the American Association of Clinical Anatomists. The findings of this study shows that the level of information given to donors and families, before consenting to whole body donation, varies greatly throughout the United States. Many of the forms fail to include the recommendations made by professional societies. Additional information needs to be added to whole body donation forms to better inform donors and families about the donation process, what happens to the body, and the final disposition of the bodies once studies are completed. Overall, it was concluded that in some cases consent is being obtained but much more needs to be done before institutions can claim to obtain informed consent.
The prevalence of research with biological specimens has led to a debate over what type of consent is needed to obtain biological specimens from minors and store them for future studies. In most cases, parental permission is needed to obtain samples from minors. In addition, almost all commentators and guidelines maintain that researchers need the consent of the donors if they want to continue to store the samples and make them available for future studies after the donors reach the age of majority. In this Ethics Rounds, we argue that this near-consensus view is mistaken on the grounds that the agreement of the parents at the time of obtaining samples provides sufficient permission to store them and use them in research even after the donors turn 18 years old.
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