INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARDS (IRB)
"Institutions have their own committees that oversee human experimentation, to protect themselves as well as their participants. There is really very little that you can do medically, or that can be done to you medically in this country today that does not have some kind of safeguard written into it because of the Tuskegee study".
- Jean Heller, investigative reporter, in student phone interview
REVIEW BOARDS
The National Research Act of 1974 called for the establishment of IRBs to protect human subjects in research. This was accomplished by the Title 45 Code of Federal Regulations Part 46. Tuskegee "energized the medical research and legal communities to form a national system of IRBs to regulate all research with human subjects" (Youngner 2014).
|
"Commission shall consider ... mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the performance of Institutional Review Boards established in accordance with section 474 of the Public Health Service Act and appropriate enforcement mechanisms for carrying out their decisions." - National Research Act (1974)
|
Excerpt from a student video interview with Dr. Dave Samols, chairman of the Biosafety Committee at Case Western Reserve University (2014)
|
"Researching with Human Subjects (IRB)"
(NU Office of Undergraduate Research 2013) |
The following "Code of Federal Regulations" outlines the principles of IRBs.
This slideshow displays IRB seals of various human research facilities. Approval by IRBs is an essential step when conducting human research.
|
"This policy applies to all research involving human subjects conducted, supported or otherwise subject to regulation by any federal department or agency which takes appropriate administrative action to make the policy applicable to such research. This includes research conducted by federal civilian employees or military personnel, except that each department or agency head may adopt such procedural modifications as may be appropriate from an administrative standpoint. It also includes research conducted, supported, or otherwise subject to regulation by the federal government outside the United States." - Title Code 45 of Federal Regulations, Part 46 (2009)
|