February 21, 2003

Improving Researchers' Informed-Consent Forms

To the Editor:

Thank you for reminding the research and scholarly community of the fundamental importance of striving to obtain each subject's true informed consent prior to her or his participation in research ("Study Finds Research Consent Forms Difficult to Comprehend," January 17). Having studied informed-consent forms for over a decade, I can state unequivocally that the problem of "unreadable" informed-consent forms extends well beyond the confines of research conducted in