38 U.S.C. § 7331
Section 7331 · Informed consent
Amended 3 times on record
Applied in 1 court decisions — leading case James A. Halcomb v. Eric K. Shinseki (2009)
Most recently applied in James A. Halcomb v. Eric K. Shinseki (October 2009)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
The Secretary, upon the recommendation of the Under Secretary for Health and pursuant to the provisions of section 7334 of this title, shall prescribe regulations establishing procedures to ensure that all medical and prosthetic research carried out and, to the maximum extent practicable, all patient care furnished under this title shall be carried out only with the full and informed consent of the patient or subject or, in appropriate cases, a representative thereof.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1992—Pub. L. 102–405 substituted “Under Secretary for Health” for “Chief Medical Director”.
1991—Pub. L. 102–40, §401(a)(4)(A), renumbered section 4131 of this title as this section.
Pub. L. 102–40, §403(a)(1), substituted “Secretary” for “Administrator”.
Pub. L. 102–40, §402(d)(1), substituted “7334” for “4134”.
Effective Date
Subchapter effective Oct. 21, 1976, see section 211 of Pub. L. 94–581, set out as an Effective Date of 1976 Amendment note under section 111 of this title.