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When ethical review of experiments is unethical
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Transcript of When ethical review of experiments is unethical
When ethical review of experiments is unethical
Michael H. Birnbaum
How to shock your colleagues
• Milgram compliance study will be replicated
• Zimbardo prison study will be replicated
• These will be done for Reality TV.
IRB stories
• The man who couldn’t speak to his wife
• The man who signed in black
• The word “gamble”
• The changing date
• The woman who couldn’t stand it
Excuses
• We are only following orders
• Eventually we approve everything, but not until you have completed the essay assignment
• It doesn’t have to make sense ethically or legally because it only applies to the rights of scientists to publish in the scientific literature.
Is there a place for IRB review?
• In my opinion, yes. Only when scientists wish to do something that would otherwise be illegal.
• For example, it is usually illegal to inject someone with live HIV virus
• There are volunteers who are willing to be injected to test if a new vaccine works.
• We need to check that volunteers know the risks and are truly volunteers.
Strange reversal of ethics
• Now, the only people who can not do certain things are scientists who plan to publish.
• The publication rule = a clear violation of first amendment civil rights
• Scientists should be granted greater freedom because of the potential good to society.
Driving Review Board
• A useful exercise is to ask the members of the IRB to apply for permission to drive a vehicle.
• 41,000 killed each year, millions of injuries and property damage claims to insurance.
• Driving, unlike psychology experiments is truly risky.
• Same standards as for IRB review: could anyone drive?
Suggestions
• Almost all psychology experiments should be simply exempt. No one is killed, no one injured, and no claims of property damage. (Probably safer to do a psych experiment than drive 1 hour in traffic)
• Anything that anyone else could do should be permitted to scientists who plan to publish
• Appeal of IRB decisions
How to save lives
• 100,000 people are killed each year by hospital infections = diseases that the person was given in the hospital.
• Same effort of IRBs could probably save 60,000 to 80,000 lives/year. Get doctors and nurses to follow standard precautions (wash hands, change gloves).
• The waste of effort by IRBs is shameful in a nation that has so many preventable deaths.