On Sun, 14 Oct 2007, Marc Carter went:
My major concern would be that the IRB is stepping into issues that don't concern it -- it's not the job of an IRB to meddle with issues of design that do not impact the rights and welfare of the participants.
I'm on an IRB, and I side with the school of thought that says a badly designed study is less ethical than a well-designed study because, as the science deteriorates, the risk:benefit ratio approaches infinity. So I have no problem with an IRB's dispensing scientific suggestions. I see it as another layer of quality control, and I'm grateful if it improves one of my own studies. However, in cases like this, where the IRB apparently doesn't know what it's talking about, I feel that there should be a mechanism available for a smackdown (or, you know, an appeals process, to phrase it more politely). The absence of such a mechanism was the subject of a fascinatingly bitter little symposium at this year's APA (presentation titles included "IRBs as Bioethical Industrial Waste for Both Research and Society"). --David Epstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
