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Article: Ethics review needs to grow up. (old world news).
- Article from:
- The Hastings Center Report
- Article date:
- May 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Hastings Center. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"`Do you know who made you?' `Nobody as I knows on,' said the child ... `I' spect I growed.'"
Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Topsy's account of childhood development could also describe how ethics review of human subjects research came about. William Curran's 1969 paper in Daedalus gives no clue as to why the earliest institutional review boards (IRBs) were set up. A 1962 study found boards in one-quarter of institutions, but Curran's view was that "in the medical research community, prior to 1962, there was a general scepticism toward the development of ethical guidelines, codes, or sets of procedures concerning the conduct of research." Yet ...