Research Ethics Committees and the Legality of the Protocol: A Rejoinder and a Challenge to the Department of Health

Abstract

This article is a response to the letter from the Department of Health that was published in the previous edition of the Research Ethics Review upon the matter of the legal duty of the research ethics committees. It also deals briefly with the article published in the current edition of Research Ethics Review by Colin Parker on what appears to be the same topic.

Correspondence

“…As I have demonstrated in earlier submissions to this journal, the REC must follow the law and if there is conflict between the law and the operational guidance handed down by NRES, then the law must prevail [7]. The current state of the operational guidance for RECs continues to reveal conflicting messages from NRES and the Department of Health as to the legal duty of the REC [8].…”

The ‘New Governance Arrangements for Research Ethics Committees’: Policy-Shift and Equivocation on Matters of Illegal Research

“…Failure to do this is likely to yield nothing of benefit to REC recruitment or to the confidence of the members in the organisation that they are meant to represent. This point has resonance when we come to examine the matters detailed below.In the time preceding the publication of the consultation on the new GAfREC, there was an exchange of views in the pages of this journal on the matter of how RECs should deal with illegal research [3][4][5]. The Department of Health issued guidance on this matter [6].…”

“…In the time preceding the publication of the consultation on the new GAfREC, there was an exchange of views in the pages of this journal on the matter of how RECs should deal with illegal research [3][4][5]. The Department of Health issued guidance on this matter [6].…”