By Madison Pauly
The Dartmouth
Published on Monday, February 25, 2013
From new cardiology studies to students that go overseas and want to interview people, the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects answers ethical questions about human research at Dartmouth. The committee is an interdisciplinary group of experts and community members who analyze the risk posed to participants by Dartmouth-affiliated researchers’ studies.
As Dartmouth’s incarnation of a federally-mandated institutional review board, the committee analyzes proposals for research on human subjects from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, as well as the College’s graduate and undergraduate departments.
While all studies involving human participants are subject to review by the committee, those that receive funding from sources other than the government must pay a review fee to the committee office.
A division of the Provost’s Office, the committee is financed in part by federal funds allocated to Dartmouth for research. Accordingly, its review process follows federal policies to ensure “respect for persons, beneficence and justice,” according to a Department of Health and Human Services report.
Major areas of ethical concern include the research’s medical relevance, involvement of vulnerable populations, its informed consent process and use of deception, said assistant provost for research Liz Bankert, a member of the committee.
The current federal regulations were last revised in 1991 and often fail to give adequate ethical guidance on modern research questions, said Bankert, who also serves on a national research ethics advisory committee.
The entire story is here.
