The Recipe for Overreaching Regulation

"The Recipe for Overreaching Regulation." The American Journal of Bioethics, 10(8), pp. 55–56

Notes

I do not have time here to provide any approaching a comprehensive list, but see, for example, http://www.hrpp.umich.edu/classactivities.html.

Balancing the risks and benefits of a study creates an interesting problem for IRBs that is, as yet, underexplored. On the one hand, determining whether the potential benefits are worth risks requires expertise in the area of research. On the other hand, IRBs are required to include many nonexperts in the field who are still responsible for evaluating the risks and benefits. This topic is worthy of substantial treatment on its own and I leave it aside for this short commentary.