Re:My Institutional Review Board Nightmare
by euyyn on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @01:23PM
(#15134043)
> They keep you from being sued [but] at what cost to the participants [...]?
The people suing you would be the participants, because you would have already harmed them. Not getting sued by them is just a derived benefit of the primary goal of protecting them from you. And the protections extend well beyond what a patient might bother suing you for: it's an ethical committee after all.
> at what cost to less well equipped researchers and at what cost to science itself?
Completely secondary considerations, for very good reasons. Nazis weren't the only ones to harm patients; also well-intentioned scientists that thought of the greater good for science itself, and grad students that lacked resources or equipment.
The people suing you would be the participants, because you would have already harmed them. Not getting sued by them is just a derived benefit of the primary goal of protecting them from you. And the protections extend well beyond what a patient might bother suing you for: it's an ethical committee after all.
> at what cost to less well equipped researchers and at what cost to science itself?
Completely secondary considerations, for very good reasons. Nazis weren't the only ones to harm patients; also well-intentioned scientists that thought of the greater good for science itself, and grad students that lacked resources or equipment.