Between animal experiments and informed consent

Participants in clinical trials, be they healthy human volunteers or patient volunteers, are still being exposed to far greater risks than they can imagine. Pre-clinical data, on which the clinical trials are based, still rely largely on the results of animal experiments, even though the animal tests often have no bearing on how man will react to a new drug or a new medical device. The advent of genetic engineering, combined with the use of animal-to-human organ transplants raises some important scientific as well as ethical questions.