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The recent shocking disclosure that U.S. public health officials sanctioned a study in Guatemala 64 years ago in which people were deliberately infected with sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) for research purposes has brought home the message to IRBs that transparency is absolutely critical in human subjects research.
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IRB members and research offices need to add the Guatemalan experiment to their human subjects research training and redouble efforts to educate the public about the high level of ethics and protections in research projects today, experts say.
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Amazon's Mechanical Turk offers investigators the chance to survey thousands of respondents quickly and cheaply via computer while protecting their anonymity. Once IRBs understand how the system works, approval should be a slam dunk, right?
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Here, a person can purchase a testing kit, submit a saliva sample, and access a secure online report regarding his or her genotype that links results to research about disease risks, carrier risks, physical traits and drug responses. For an additional fee, the customer also can explore his or her ancestry and even link up with other customers whose DNA closely matches theirs.
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The CureTogether website allows participants to log in anonymously to answer questions about diseases or conditions they may have and the various treatments they have used, along with the effectiveness of those treatments.
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Acute stroke trials pose unique ethical challenges to researchers, and by extension to IRBs. Stroke interventions are extremely time-sensitive, meaning that decisions about treatment and research participation often must be made quickly.
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As the lingering pain of the recession continues to hamper state budgets, the prospect of furloughs may easily be in many IRBs' futures.
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Some IRBs are beginning to change how they view the risks of asking sensitive questions of subjects in social-behavioral research studies.
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There are many biomedical and socio-behavioral studies that include questions about childhood sexual abuse since this is a major risk factor for a variety of illnesses.
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The drive to improve participation in cancer clinical trials has led one cancer center to try a novel approach, using humor and a game show format to educate people about participation in research.
