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Informed consent requirements for medical research have expanded over the past half-century. The Declaration of Helsinki now includes an explicit positive obligation to inform subjects about funding sources. This is problematic in a number of ways and seems to oblige researchers to disclose information irrelevant to most consent decisions. It is argued here that such a problematic obligation involves an "informational fallacy." The aim in the second part of the paper is to provide a better approach to making sense of how a failure to inform about funding sources wrongs subjects: by making appeals to obligations to refrain from misleading by omission. This alternative approach-grounded in a general obligation to refrain from misleading, an obligation that is independent of informed consent-provides a basis for a norm that protects subjects' interests, without the informational fallacy. The approach developed here avoids the problems identified with the currently specified general obligation to inform about funding sources., (© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

In Germany approximately 4-5 million erythrocyte concentrates are administered annually. Every transfusion fulfills the criteria for an organ transplantation and represents a measure that includes risks which must be clarified with informed consent. This article describes the legal requirements for informed consent, the content, form and the exceptions. Finally, the consequences of errors in informed consent are presented.