Chunk #37 — PART II. CORE QUESTIONS — D. If Data and Samples Can Be Re-identified, Are There Any Biobank Research System Responsibilities to Offer Return of IFs and IRRs? — The ethics of return in individual studies
Second, a number of ethical arguments support researcher responsibilities to manage and offer return of some IFs and IRRs. Richardson and Belsky,44 for example, argue that participant vulnerability and researcher fiduciary duties mean researchers owe a limited duty of “ancillary care” (care beyond that required to carry out the research safely), and Richardson45 has clarified that this encompasses a duty to offer back to the participant some IFs. They argue that when research participants entrust otherwise private information to researchers or provide researchers access to some aspect of the participant’s body, this “partial entrustment” carries with it certain researcher duties, including the duty to offer back information discovered of clinical importance. F.G. Miller et al.46 similarly argue that the researcher’s ethical obligation to return IFs is rooted in the researcher’s professional relationship with the participant, privileged access to private information about the participant, and discovery of an IF bearing on the participant’s health.
