2025-2026 Winter Closure

The IRB & SCRO offices will be closed during Stanford’s Winter Closure from Monday, December 22, 2025, through Friday, January 2, 2026, and will resume operations on Monday, January 5, 2026. View Submission Deadline information for IRB/SCRO review prior to the upcoming Winter Closure.

Stanford IRB • SCRO • APLAC
IRB • SCRO Institutional Review Board IRB • SCRO • APLAC
IRB • SCRO • APLAC

Experimental Subject's Bill of Rights

Experimental Subject's Bill of Rights

As a research participant you have the following rights. These rights include but are not limited to the participant's right to:

  • be informed of the nature and purpose of the experiment;
  • be given an explanation of the procedures to be followed in the medical experiment, and any drug or device to be utilized;
  • be given a description of any attendant discomforts and risks reasonably to be expected;
  • be given an explanation of any benefits to the subject reasonably to be expected, if applicable;
  • be given a disclosure of any appropriate alternatives, drugs or devices that might be advantageous to the subject, their relative risks and benefits;
  • be informed of the avenues of medical treatment, if any available to the subject after the experiment if complications should arise;
  • be given an opportunity to ask questions concerning the experiment or the procedures involved;
  • be instructed that consent to participate in the medical experiment may be withdrawn at any time and the subject may discontinue participation without prejudice;
  • be given a copy of the signed and dated consent form; and
  • be given the opportunity to decide to consent or not to consent to a medical experiment without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, coercion or undue influence on the subject's decision

California Law, under Health & Safety Code (HSC) § 24172, requires that research participants who take part in a "medical experiment" receive a copy of the Experimental Subject's Bill of Rights in a language in which the participants are fluent. Translations can be found within the available Short Form Consent templates

"Medical experiment" is defined (CA HSC § 24174) as an experiment including one or more of the following activities:

  1. The severance or penetration or damaging of tissues of a human subject or the use of a drug or device, electromagnetic radiation, heat or cold, or a biological substance or organism, in or upon a human subject in the practice or research of medicine in a manner not reasonably related to maintaining or improving the health of the subject or otherwise directly benefiting the subject.
  2. The investigational use of a drug or device as provided in Sections 111590 and 111595.
  3. Withholding medical treatment from a human subject for any purpose other than maintenance or improvement of the health of the subject.