The Revised Common Rule and Informed Consent: Consent Waivers
The Revised Common Rule has a few important changes regarding consent waivers.
Under the revised Common Rule, broad consent is provided as an alternative to the informed consent requirements for the storage, maintenance, and secondary research use of identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens. If an individual was asked and refused to provide broad consent, the IRB is prohibited from waiving informed consent at a later date for the use of the subject’s identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens in a secondary study. This means that this information must be tracked. This may be complicated, particularly for larger health care institutions and systems, and therefore the broad consent mechanism may not be widely utilized.
Of note is that the use of the individual’s materials in a nonidentifiable manner in secondary research continues to be permissible, even if there was a refusal to broad consent, since this particular use would not otherwise require a waiver of informed consent since the activity does not constitute research with human subjects.
The Revised Common Rule also adds a new waiver criterion. In order to waiver or alter consent, the IRB must find and document the following:
- The research involves no more than minimal risk to subjects;
- The waiver or alteration will not adversely affect the rights and welfare of the subjects;
- The research could not practicably be carried out without the requested waiver or alteration;
- (New as of January 21, 2019) If the research involves using identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens, the research could not practicably be carried out without using such information or biospecimens in an identifiable format; and
- Whenever appropriate, the subjects or legally authorized representative will be provided with additional pertinent information after participation
The term “practicably” has not been clarified in the revised rule.
In the case of recruitment and screening of research subjects, the pre-2018 rule required an IRB to determine that informed consent can be waived under the .116(d) criteria before investigators could record identifiable private information for the purpose of identifying and contacting prospective subjects for a research study. Although not considered a “waiver,” under the new rule, an IRB can approve an investigator’s proposal to obtain information directly from a prospective subject, or to obtain already collected identifiable information or identifiable biospecimens by accessing records or stored biospecimens, for purposes of screening, recruiting, or eligibility assessment, without the informed consent of the prospective subjects.
The Revised Common Rule’s section on waivers or alterations of consent can be complicated, so it is important for research professionals, researchers and IRBs to review the changes and the exceptions.
For More On The Revised Common Rule and Informed Consent, see our previous article on Broad Consent
https://www.brany.com/the-revised-common-rule-and-informed-consent-broad-consent/
