Opt-out from biobanks better respects patients' autonomy

doi:10.1136/bmj.a1580

Published 10 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1580
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1580

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Biobanking

Opt-out from biobanks better respects patients’ autonomy

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

We found that dissent to storage and use of samples by Swedishhealthcare biobanks is rare and does not pose a threat to research,concluding that the results give prima facie reason to considera move to an opt-out system.¹

Laurie presented two controversies as evidence that opt-outsystems are inappropriate.² However, despite the controversysurrounding the Icelandic health sector database, public supportcontinues.³ Furthermore, negative attitudes may in part arisefrom commercial interests,³ which are largely absent in theSwedish context. The second example was organ donation in England,which should not be confused with biobank research.

Laurie also claims that an opt-out system will be more costlybecause patients would have to be given "adequate informationabout who might have access to their samples or information,and for what purposes." We have argued elsewhere that generalconsent is quite sufficient, and several surveys of donors’attitudes agree.⁴ Donors . . . [Full text of this article]

Linus Johnsson, student¹, Mats G Hansson, professor¹, Stefan Eriksson, senior researcher¹, Gert Helgesson, senior researcher²

¹ Centre for Research Ethics and Bioethics, Uppsala University, Uppsala Science Park, SE-751 85 Uppsala, Sweden, ² Unit for Bioethics, LIME, Karolinska Institutet, Berzelius väg 3, SE-171 77 Stockholm

linus.johnsson@crb.uu.se

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