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.