Ethical Issues Surrounding the Research Use of Forensic Samples in Japan

In recent years, many countries have established ethical legislation to regulate the use of human samples in medical research. In this paper, we consider the unique ethical issues involved when forensic samples are used as research resources. Unlike clinical pathological autopsies that presuppose the informed consent of a patient's relative(s) for conduct of the autopsy, certain aspects of forensic autopsies does not. In this article, we classify the forensic research and consider the ethical issues in individual research use and propose criteria for research use based on scientific validation and an examination by an institutional ethical review board.