Comparison of German and American law concerning clinical trials

In German and American law, clinical trials require a positive benefit-risk evaluation, free and informed consent, medical and scientific qualification of the doctor, and a written research protocol. American law requires a written consent, which is free of undue influence, the subject being instructed that he is free to withdraw from the trial. In German law, an orally given consent is sufficient for therapeutic trials. With minor or incompetent research subjects, informed consent to therapeutic clinical experimentation has to be given by their parents or guardians, the permissibility of which, in other trials, is controversial. In non-therapeutic trials, blind studies, double-bind studies, and trials involving placebos, special attention has to be paid to the risk-benefit analysis and to informed consent, which in these cases, even in Germany, must be written. The most outstanding feature of American law of clinical trial is that the experimentation is subject to previous control and approval by institutional review boards. The most interesting difference in German law is the investigator's duty to effect an insurance against the risks of the research subject's death or invalidity.