I wonder who was behind that rule change. It smacks of something Sir Jeremy Farrar would do, Covid-conspirator-in-Chief, now head scientist at WHO, but you'd imagine big-pharma as an industry would have pushed for it as well,

As you mention, it was already activated with the Covid vaccines. They were declared "100% safe & effective", so that takes care of the "minimal risk" to subjects, then made compulsory (in a 'new normal' way - 'no jab - no job').

My next concern would be: Was this rule change made with a particular project in mind? The thing is, by scrapping consent, we will never know.