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Amazon's Mechanical Turk offers investigators the chance to survey thousands of respondents quickly and cheaply via computer while protecting their anonymity. Once IRBs understand how the system works, approval should be a slam dunk, right?
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IRB members and research offices need to add the Guatemalan experiment to their human subjects research training and redouble efforts to educate the public about the high level of ethics and protections in research projects today, experts say.
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The recent shocking disclosure that U.S. public health officials sanctioned a study in Guatemala 64 years ago in which people were deliberately infected with sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) for research purposes has brought home the message to IRBs that transparency is absolutely critical in human subjects research.
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Researchers go to all sorts of lengths to attract participants for surveys and other types of non-clinical research recruiting Psych 101 students, posting fliers, handing out gift cards, etc. But a new method of recruitment takes advantage of an existing Internet trend toward outsourcing tasks to thousands of computer users around the world.
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One of the strangest new areas of research ethics involves how IRBs should handle research that involves Internet communities, including virtual communities.
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Academic research institutions continue to cope with challenging economic times, looking for ways to cut costs and improve efficiencies. IRB directors can make a good case that one of the best ways to do both is to move to an electronic data and IRB review system.
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The drive to improve participation in cancer clinical trials has led one cancer center to try a novel approach, using humor and a game show format to educate people about participation in research.
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There are many biomedical and socio-behavioral studies that include questions about childhood sexual abuse since this is a major risk factor for a variety of illnesses.
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Some IRBs are beginning to change how they view the risks of asking sensitive questions of subjects in social-behavioral research studies.
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As the lingering pain of the recession continues to hamper state budgets, the prospect of furloughs may easily be in many IRBs' futures.