…research in patients not competent to give consent. Thus in 1964 the World Medical Association produced the less restrictive Declaration of Helsinki (p 1448). Jochen Vollmann and Rolf Winau describe how guidelines on informed consent had actually appeared at the end of the 19th century (p 1445), while Jennifer Leaning (p 1413) and a book review (p 1494) remind us how experimentation without consent has continued since Nuremberg. Paul Weindling notes that the BMJ had a correspondent covering the Nuremberg trials who had views that were more sympathetic to the Nazi doctors than is now fashionable (p 1467). Twice in the past fortnight we at the BMJ have debated whether to publish trials that did not include fully informed consent, and the Food and Drug Administration in the United States has just produced guidelines saying that research on patients needing immediate intensive care can be conducted without consent (16 November, …