Ethical ethics committees?: a response

Ethical ethics committees?

Local Research Ethics Committees can audit ethical standards in research.

OBJECTIVES To show that a Local Research Ethics Committee (LREC) can carry out an audit of ethical standards in research. To find out if a researcher met certain ethical standards in recruiting subjects for clinical trials and in obtaining their consent. DESIGN Postal questionnaire. SETTING Clinical research by one doctor during one year. SUBJECTS Eleven patients entered in clinical trial...

Ethics committees and ethics consultants

Ethics committee and ethics consultants are among the more interesting phenomena associated with bioethics. Although in some respects both reach back to the ancient origins of medical ethics, in other ways they are reflections of a ‘postmodern’ society that seeks moral resolutions while remaining agnostic about substantive moral absolutes. In the present article I shall describe the history of ...

Developing clinical ethics committees.

Formal clinical ethics review first developed in the USA and most hospitals there have structures in place. This is often a clinical ethics committee. Developments have been slower in the UK, where there has been uncertainty and variability about the role of clinical ethics committees. Even in the USA, their exact role is uncertain. Although we now have a good idea of the mechanisms for ethical...

Incorporating ethical principles into clinical research protocols: a tool for protocol writers and ethics committees

A novel Protocol Ethics Tool Kit ('Ethics Tool Kit') has been developed by a multi-stakeholder group of the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard. The purpose of the Ethics Tool Kit is to facilitate effective recognition, consideration and deliberation of critical ethical issues in clinical trial protocols. The Ethics Tool Kit may be used by investiga...