Research without consent: community perspectives from the Community VOICES Study.

Objective: To explore community attitudes toward the federal regulations that allow investigators to conduct emergency research without obtaining informed consent from participants.

Methods: Focus-group participants were recruited from residential sites in New York City that were enrolled in the Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) Trial. The PAD Trial, a National Institutes of Health-funded, randomized trial in which laypersons were trained to treat cardiac arrest, was granted an exception from informed consent under these rules.