Biomedical research is a critical component of medical advances, knowledge and patient care. In the past, human subjects research has often been for the advantage of the researcher and not the patient, or future patients. As a result, there are many safety processes in place to oversee human subjects research, including the Institutional Review Board, National Institutes of Health Office for Protection of Research Subjects, and the Belmont Report, to name a few. Most importantly in all of these regulations is the process of Informed Consent; the patient is involved in the decision to participate in the research understanding the risks and benefits and can decline and withdraw at any time without penalty or abandonment. In certain medical situations, it is not possible to obtain informed consent prior to the medical intervention being studied; for example, stroke interventions and trauma. There are processes involved to inform the public and to give them the opportunity to “opt out” and not participate in the research. However, these emergency consent procedures place the responsibility on the patient, rather than on the researcher. In the case of strokes and trauma, the notifications may not actually be accessible to the patients who suffer from the medical condition. This talk will briefly review the history of medical research and the regulations surrounding emergency consent research, and to discuss the ethics of research in a population that may not truly be informed of the risks and benefits, or even of the research itself.