Ethics committees: impediments to research or guardians of ethical standards?

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...

Ethical ethics committees?

Attitudes to research ethical committees.

A questionnaire on the attitudes towards the functions of research ethical committees was sent to members of selected research ethical committees in Wessex and some controls. Almost all respondents felt there was a need for ethical review of research projects; 42 per cent thought there was a need for some training before joining a committee; 67 per cent thought the system could be improved and ...

Research ethics committees: agents of research policy?

UNLABELLED The purpose of this commentary is to describe the unintended effects ethics committees may have on research and to analyse the regulatory and administrative problems of clinical trials. DISCUSSION The Finnish law makes an arbitrary distinction between medical research and other health research, and the European Union's directive for good clinical trials further differentiates drug ...

Research ethics committees and paternalism.

In this paper the authors argue that research ethics committees (RECs) should not be paternalistic by rejecting research that poses risk to people competent to decide for themselves. However it is important they help to ensure valid consent is sought from potential recruits and protect vulnerable people who cannot look after their own best interests. The authors first describe the tragic deaths...