Paying subjects for research participation can be a sticky issue, and it sometimes feels like we rely on gut feelings to decide what’s an appropriate amount of payment, how it should be disbursed, and whether payment unduly influences the decision to participate. Some human subject research ethics experts took a more scholarly approach. The New […]

Our thanks once again to PRIM&R’s Ampersand blog and to First Clinical Research for sharing some thought-provoking Questions of the Month with the IRB community. February’s question addresses the exclusion from a phase 2 drug trial of a certain class of people, specifically people “Educated or employed as an attorney.” The drug in question is […]

Ethics reviewers wrestle with the issue of using placebos in research because of the fear that withholding a treatment from the controls may be denying controls access to a helpful treatment. And as our IRB members know, the IRB makes separate risk determinations for different groups in FDA-regulated investigational studies involving children, because different groups […]

Paying subjects for their research participation engenders quite a lot of discussion, both among research teams and on the IRB. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released an information sheet regarding its current thinking on paying subjects. The FDA, like the UAMS IRB, feels that payment should accrue as the subject progresses through the […]

Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R), upon whom we rely for updates in the world of human subject protections, has come through again with a recap of how the delay in the implementation of the revised Common Rule affects us here on the ground. Some highlights worth mentioning: The current Common Rule requirements described […]

That sound you hear is a giant sigh of relief from a whole lot of institutions subject to OHRP oversight. Late this afternoon, we received word of the planned Federal Register Publication of an interim Final Rule, delaying the effective and compliance date of the Revised Common Rule until July 19, 2018, which is 6 […]

Will we, or won’t we, have to comply with the revised Common Rule in a few short weeks? That’s the big question to which there’s still no solid answer as of this writing. January 19, 2018, has a big, red circle around it on our calendar. That’s the date the revised Common Rule is slated […]

An IRB Blog Central staffer recently found herself purchasing one of those fancy-schmancy beds that can be adjusted all kinds of ways. While wandering around the showroom, she noticed a screen flashing statistics about Arkansans’ sleep patterns, and how they compared to those in the rest of the country. All of it based on *data* […]

Research findings and publications can lead to more than just heated discussions and letters to the editor. It turns out they can also lead to lawsuits, according to a recent New York Times column. Its author goes on to discuss the chilling effects legal action can have on the research enterprise. Author Aaron E. Carroll […]

Remember that asterisk in our blog items that talked about the final* Revised Common Rule? Well, it’s still there. Most of the Revised Common Rule was, and still is as of this writing, slated to take effect in January 2018. However, even its authors agree that the revised rule introduces a lot of changes to […]