Mission Creep in the IRB World

摘要

The system in the United States for protecting human participants in research engages the earnest efforts of thousands of scientists, community volunteers, and administrators. Through untold hours of service on Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), they watch over the safety of human research subjects. Unfortunately, much of that effort is increasingly misdirected as the system succumbs to "mission creep" that could compromise its central goals. Our IRB system is endangered by excessive paperwork and expanding obligations to oversee work that poses little risk to subjects. The result is that we have simultaneous overregulation and underprotection.