Comments on: IRBs and Clean Secrets

By: Wes Unruh (@undoinghate)

Wes Unruh (@undoinghate) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 04:53:41 +0000

IRBs and Clean Secrets http://t.co/VtNXndHd

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:41:00 +0000

In reply to Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox. Thanks! I definitely agree, and suspect I'll find myself on an IRB soon enough. I'm sorry that the emphasis--especially in the Nature piece--came out on the side of reducing IRB involvement. I do think it should be easier to do social science research without pre-review (and OHRP seems to agree!), but I think the openness issues is more important.

By: Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox

Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:01:34 +0000

Great article. As a long-time member of an IRB, I completely agree with the arguments you make here. Of course, as you will admit, sometimes IRB’s do important work, such as when they prevent (in one case I remember) the distribution of a non-anonymous survey to students that asked them to reveal potentially illegal conduct. In general, though, there is plenty of overregulation. I will never forget a case from several years ago in which we were asked to approve a study that asked veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan their opinion of the foreign policy of the Bush administration, and the study was denied because of fears that the question might trigger PTSD. Ridiculous. If that study triggers post-traumatic stress, then vets should never be allowed to take history or political science courses.