An ethics committee for the BMJ

European Ethical Review Committee: the experience of an international ethics committee reviewing protocols for drug trials.

An international ethics review committee, founded seven years ago, has several unusual features: it selects its own members, who are independent of the drug industry; it includes members with no medical or paramedical background, such as lay people and lawyers; and it reviews protocols together with the study's sponsor. Membership of 31 from nine European countries enables frequent meetings and...

An Ethics Committee in the Third Sector: Process and pitfalls

This article describes the lessons learned from introducing and establishing an ethics committee in a large third sector care provider. The article hopes to encourage other organisations to introduce similar committees and to help avoid potential problems and give advice on how to navigate others. It also hopes to give researchers and students insight into how a committee works and therefore pe...

National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee

Ethics-committee authorization in Germany.

On 9 August 1994 the German legislature revised the German Drug Law (AMG). Included in the revision is a passage requiring, for the first time, that the sponsors and investigators of clinical studies involving human subjects first obtain the approval of an ethics committee before carrying out such studies. According to the legislation, which takes effect on 17 August 1995, approval is to come f...

Role of the research ethics committee.

Research ethics committees have an important role to play in ensuring the ethical standards and scientific merit of research involving human subjects. There are three important obligations placed on the ethics committee. Firstly, and most importantly, the ethics committee must ensure that the rights of research participants are protected. This is achieved by ensuring that individuals receive su...