Abstract
During the past few decades the rule of informed consent has thoroughly changed everyday decision-making in the healthcare sector. This paper explores the dissemination of informed consent from the perspective of organizational fashion studies. It is argued that this approach can be employed to stimulate renewed reflections on what informed consent procedures do as well as when and how such procedures become endorsed by various organizational actors. A history of the agencies involved in formulating the consent requirement is presented and related to the implications of this new emphasis on the autonomous choice of patients and research participants.
