To the best of my knowledge, it doesn't matter if the particular study does not receive federal funding if it violates federal protections. What matters is whether or not there is any federal money coming into your university. THAT can be frozen if an investigation into irb irregularities occurs.
Does anyone else know different? Unfortunately all of the famous cases that I can think of were those in which a federally funded study was involved. Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 619-260-4006 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---- Original message ---- >Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:24:54 -0400 >From: Steven Specht <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: [tips] more on our IRB problems >To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]> > >Thank you all for responding so thoughtfully. I encourage others to >reply as well. I would like to use this info (minus any identifying >information) to our Dean (who is a Language History scholar with no >background in science apparently. She didn't even know what a "poster >session" was). Anyway, PLEASE let me know if you do not want your >response used (but I really need some "outside ammo" here). I am even >more perturbed about this latest problem than usual because of an >incident that happened last year. The same IRB committee approved some >survey research from a Ph.D. student at Phoenix University (yes, the >online diploma mill... oops, did I say that?). The survey was >distributed on campus and was about faculty-administrative relations as >well as workplace stress (INCLUDING minor physical problems and drug >and alcohol use). I completed the survey because I like to help out >anyone doing research. I also included additional information about my >displeasure with our administration in the space available. I later >found out that the survey was being conducted by one of our own >administrators (a Vice President getting his degree from Phoenix)!!! He >failed to identify himself as an administrator at our institution! >Clearly this was a case in which the researcher did not disclose some >absolutely essential information. I raised the issue and received a >"smackdown" myself. I went so far as to call the folks in the >Washington Human Subjects Protection Office (they said they couldn't do >anything since the research was not federally funded). Our IRB is >obviously out of control at many levels and I am hoping to soon request >a wholesale resignation of the committee. Like I don't have better >things to do. Argh! >Thanks again. >-S > > >======================================================== >Steven M. Specht, Ph.D. >Associate Professor of Psychology >Utica College >Utica, NY 13502 >(315) 792-3171 > >"Mice may be called large or small, and so may elephants, and it is >quite understandable when someone says it was a large mouse that ran up >the trunk of a small elephant" (S. S. Stevens, 1958) > >--- ---
