Should research ethics committees meet in public?

Journal of Medical Ethics 34 (8):631-635 (2008)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Currently, research ethics committees in the UK meet behind closed doors—their workings and most of the content of their decisions are unavailable to the general public. There is a significant tension between this current practice and a broader societal presumption of openness. As a form of public institution, the REC system exists to oversee research from the perspective of society generally.An important part of this tension turns on the kind of justification that might be offered for the REC system. In this paper I adapt Daniels and Sabin’s accountability for reasonableness model for just resource allocation to the research ethics context to provide some structural legitimacy and to enable progress on the question of openness. After considering the consequences of adopting this model for open REC meetings, I then examine some reasons that might be offered against open meetings. These arguments do not overwhelm the core intuitions behind the presumption of openness but they do, I suggest, give us reason to retreat from fully public meetings. I conclude that there should be important adjustments to the system towards public accountability and that there are grounds for stopping short of fully public meetings

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Role of Ethics Committees in Public Debate.Lonneke M. Poort - 2008 - International Journal of Applied Philosophy 22 (1):19-35.
Ethics committees for "high tech" innovations in japan.Rihito Kimura - 1989 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 14 (4):457-464.
The ethics committee as ghost author.David Shaw - 2011 - Journal of Medical Ethics 37 (12):706-706.
Scientific Research and the Public Trust.David B. Resnik - 2011 - Science and Engineering Ethics 17 (3):399-409.
The ghana experience.Paulina Tindana & Okyere Boateng - 2008 - Journal of Academic Ethics 6 (4):277-281.
The pakistan experience.Sadaf Sheikh - 2008 - Journal of Academic Ethics 6 (4):283-287.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-08-24

Downloads
16 (#774,541)

6 months
2 (#668,348)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?