The evaluation will be based on the quality of reasoning and ethical analysis. You are welcome to discuss the questions with your colleagues, but the written submission should be your own. Essays are due by a date in December to be determined in consultation with course participants. An electronic version makes it easy to comment on specific points of your answers in more detail than would be possible on a printout version. The IRB system was established for the protection of human subjects of biomedical and behavioral research.
Some critics contend that a variety of barriers prevent IRBs from doing an effective job.
Identify what are held to be the chief barriers and discuss the critical contention. If you think so, specify the features of such research and why prohibition would be justified. IRBs cannot evaluate risks and benefits in a meaningful way. Therefore, when research protocols involve only subjects with the capacity to grant voluntary, informed consent, IRBs should abandon the pretense of making risk-benefit assessments and leave the decision whether to participate entirely in the hands of the autonomous potential subjects. Journalists often observe people without their knowledge or consent and write about their observations.