You Might Not Have Access…

In “You Get What someone Else Will Pay For,” Deborah Barnbaum provides two arguments for her view that what ought to be included in future informed consent documents for clinical research participants is the anticipated future cost of the drug being tested, were that drug to become available for future patients for whom that drug is indicated. In this paper, I will argue that although Barnbaum’s intentions are commendable, she has not provided sufficient reasons to require the future cost of the drug as relevant information for informed consent, and so it need not be included in the informed consent document. What I believe to be Barnbaum’s underlying concern is the potential for research sponsors to unfairly benefit from and exploit research participants as a result of an existing power imbalance within this relationship. Ultimately, although Barnbaum's goal is a worthy one, I will argue that to achieve this goal, research sponsors do not need to include the anticipated future cost of the drug, as she argues, and that perhaps they should not, since including this information could lead to more harm than good. I argue that all that is needed for informed consent is a statement that indicates that research participants might not have personal access to the drug were it to pass the trial and reach the market.1