Institutional Review Board, Ethics Committee

Institutional Review Board Mission

In this article, I scrutinize the process by which scientific research on human subjects is regulated by Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). At the outset, let us agree that at least some biomedical scientific research on human subjects must be externally monitored and that whether government should sometimes be involved in that process is at least an open question. We simply cannot forget the ...

Victor Frankenstein's Institutional Review Board Proposal, 1790

To show how the case of Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein brings light to the ethical and moral issues raised in Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocols, we nest an imaginary IRB proposal dated August 1790 by Victor Frankenstein within a discussion of the importance and function of the IRB. Considering the world of science as would have appeared in 1790 when Victor was a student at Ingolsta...

Stages of institutional review board activities.

Measuring inconsistency in research ethics committee review

BACKGROUND The review of human participant research by Research Ethics Committees (RECs) or Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) is a complex multi-faceted process that cannot be reduced to an algorithm. However, this does not give RECs/ IRBs permission to be inconsistent in their specific requirements to researchers or in their final opinions. In England the Health Research Authority (HRA) coord...

Institutional Review Boards and Independent Ethics Committees

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and Independent Ethics Committees (IECs) are charged with protecting the rights and safety of clinical trial participants. The regulations that guide the review, approval, and conduct of human research refer to these independent boards as IRBs or IECs. In 2001 the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP) was formed. Sinc...