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While the decision of the House of Lords in Re F in [1990] clarified somewhat the law concerning the treatment of the mentally incapacitated adult, many uncertainties remained. This paper explores proposals discussed in a recent government green paper for reform of the law in an area involving many difficult ethical dilemmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1989, in the wake of the first operations to transplant fetal tissue into the brains of sufferers from Parkinson's Disease, the UK Code of Practice governing the use of the fetus for research was overhauled by an eminent committee under the chairmanship of the Reverend Dr John Polkinghorne. The Polkinghorne Report has, however, attracted remarkably little comment or analysis. This paper is believed to be the first to subject it to sustained ethical and legal scrutiny. The author concludes that, although the committee's recommendations meet the major objections to the Code of Practice, the report is nevertheless vulnerable to criticism in its treatment of at least three issues: the moral status of the fetus; paternal consent to fetal use, and the ethical inter-relation of fetal use and abortion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper some of the general issues surrounding recently published guidelines for the practice of research ethics committees are outlined, concentrating in particular on the difficulties raised by research with psychiatric patients. Research is distinguished from ordinary clinical practice by the intention to advance knowledge. So defined, research with psychiatric patients should be governed by the same four principles as research with any other group--knowledge, necessity, benefit and consent. In applying these principles, however, particularly the principle of consent, many acute difficulties are raised by psychiatric patients. A number of proposals for addressing these difficulties are discussed. It is suggested that, notwithstanding the value of published guidelines, and the help that may be available from research ethics committees, the primary responsibility for maintaining high standards of practice in research rests with research workers themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Identifiable excess surgical tissue is an important resource for medical research but we have become overly restrictive about consent requirements. I suggest we devolve consent to ethics committees for ordinary research projects involving human tissue, retaining the requirement for explicit consent only for those sensitive research situations where there is significant risk of harm to individual interests in privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]