Informed Consent
One of the most important tenets of the HGDP debate has been the social and ethical implications for indigenous populations, specifically the methods and ethics of informed consent. Some questions include: How would consent be obtained? Would individuals or groups fully understand the project's intentions, particularly with regards to language barriers and differing cultural views? What is 'informed' in a cross-cultural context? Who would be authorized to actually give consent? How would individuals know what happened to their DNA? For how long would their information be kept in DNA databases? These questions are specifically addressed by the HGDP's "Model Ethical Protocol for Collecting DNA Samples".
Read more about this topic: Human Genome Diversity Project
Famous quotes containing the words informed and/or consent:
“The matter of consulting experienced workers, of keeping all the workers informed of changes in production and wage methods, and how the changes are arrived at, seems to me the most important duty in the whole field of management.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“In making the great experiment of governing people by consent rather than by coercion, it is not sufficient that the party in power should have a majority. It is just as necessary that the party in power should never outrage the minority.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)