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Have institutional review boards (IRBs) overstepped their bounds? Patricia Cohen reports on the widening jurisdiction of IRBs and the effect it is having on academic activities and research outside of the biomedical sciences.
Money quote:
Ever since the gross mistreatment of poor black men in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study came to light three decades ago, the federal government has required ethics panels to protect people from being used as human lab rats in biomedical studies. Yet now, faculty and graduate students across the country increasingly complain that these panels have spun out of control, curtailing academic freedom and interfering with research in history, English and other subjects that poses virtually no danger to anyone.