Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 165 posts

Re: Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

#11

Post by potato3732842 »

skwb wrote: post #10

I mean tons of retrospective studies are literally "IRB exempt" (and highlighted as such in their methods) where no explicit consent is required or needed. Physicians doing case reviews don't need consent of the patient this work. Doing retrospective analyses for defining clinical phenotypes on patient data that has been aggregated isn't needed either. Collecting clinical MRIs to do deep learning doesn't require an I…

>IRBs are only REALLY required when you are intervening in patient care or pose some theoretical risk to a human.

In practice, sure, but that's not what the spaghetti of rules that one is compelled by law to follow state. This disconnect is the whole point of the article.

Re: Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

#12

Post by perihelions »

And yet, FAANG's somehow get way with employing credentialed psychologists and psychiatrists, to experiment on social media users, for maximizing their various engagement and click metrics.

For the scale and impact of non-IRB human psychology research, that one has to be at the very top.

Re: Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

#13

Post by skwb »

potato3732842 wrote: post #11
skwb wrote: post #10

I mean tons of retrospective studies are literally "IRB exempt" (and highlighted as such in their methods) where no explicit consent is required or needed. Physicians doing case reviews don't need consent of the patient this work. Doing retrospective analyses for defining clinical phenotypes on patient data that has been aggregated isn't needed either. Collecting clinical MRIs to do deep learning doesn't require an I…

>IRBs are only REALLY required when you are intervening in patient care or pose some theoretical risk to a human. In practice, sure, but that's not what the spaghetti of rules that one is compelled by law to follow state. This disconnect is the whole point of the article.

I just pointed out the numerous exemptions to IRBs for research. People can literally make a research career and never touch IRBs.

The point I'm trying to make is that the blog is so narrowly defined that it doesn't match the reality of clinical research.

Re: Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

#14

Post by [deleted] »

perihelions wrote: post #12

And yet, FAANG's somehow get way with employing credentialed psychologists and psychiatrists, to experiment on social media users, for maximizing their various engagement and click metrics. For the scale and impact of non-IRB human psychology research, that one has to be at the very top.

[deleted]

Re: Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

#15

Post by handoflixue »

bilbo0s wrote: post #5
bell-cot wrote: post #2

The article is about medical research on human subjects. And quickly concedes that a great many technically -need-permission things which you might do are of no actual interest to the gov't. EDIT: The second sentence of the article is - > Like, let’s eat potatoes and see if we lose weight. - which, in the minds of 95% of likely jury members , is not "medical research". Nor, at small scale, of plausible interest to th…

That's playing with fire. You could find yourself standing in front of a courtroom if something goes wrong, or God Forbid, if someone dies, trying to convince a judge and jury with nothing but, "I didn't need government permission". That's not a good place to be.

> if something goes wrong, or God Forbid, if someone dies

Does emacs improve your typing speed? STOP! That's human experimentation!! That's the point of the article. Why would you worry someone is doing to die testing their typing speed, or filling out an online survey?

You've probably conducts numerous Experimental Human Trials over your lifetime - anyone who is even slightly curious and empirical has!

Re: Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

#16

Post by selimthegrim »

temp0826 wrote: post #9
bilbo0s wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's playing with fire. You could find yourself standing in front of a courtroom if something goes wrong, or God Forbid, if someone dies, trying to convince a judge and jury with nothing but, "I didn't need government permission". That's not a good place to be.

I used to facilitate the use of an alternative medicine (kambo), which could be dangerous if used incorrectly or given to someone with a contraindicated condition. (It has been linked to a few deaths and has recently been banned in Australia). It occurred to me that even a great signed waiver wouldn't save me if something went sideways and decided to stop. I honestly don't think a waiver wouldn't matter in cases like…

see also certain sweat lodge practitioners

Re: Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

#17

Post by selimthegrim »

eadmund wrote: post #7
bell-cot wrote: post #2

The article is about medical research on human subjects. And quickly concedes that a great many technically -need-permission things which you might do are of no actual interest to the gov't. EDIT: The second sentence of the article is - > Like, let’s eat potatoes and see if we lose weight. - which, in the minds of 95% of likely jury members , is not "medical research". Nor, at small scale, of plausible interest to th…

Of no actual interest to the government, unless you are someone that someone in the government wishes to crush. ‘Gosh, Opponent of the Regime, when you wrote your blog entry in 2019 about cutting eggs out of your kids’ diets, that was un-reviewed human research. To jail with you!’

This is inconsistent with the general line of the Party, comrade. Your train to Vorkuta awaits.

Re: Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

#18

Post by Xmd5a »

handoflixue wrote: post #15
bilbo0s wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's playing with fire. You could find yourself standing in front of a courtroom if something goes wrong, or God Forbid, if someone dies, trying to convince a judge and jury with nothing but, "I didn't need government permission". That's not a good place to be.

> if something goes wrong, or God Forbid, if someone dies Does emacs improve your typing speed? STOP! That's human experimentation!! That's the point of the article. Why would you worry someone is doing to die testing their typing speed, or filling out an online survey? You've probably conducts numerous Experimental Human Trials over your lifetime - anyone who is even slightly curious and empirical has!

He's right you know. I have no opinion on this subject but there has been a crackdown against these kind of activities, especially after covid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Casasnovas

Re: Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

#19

Post by machine_ghost »

The fact that the very foundation of our legal system is fundamentally undemocratic (in the sense that no regular citizen can be reasonably expected to understand it) is starting to bubble up into societal awareness.

With everything Trump is doing to destroy the rule of law, and all the potential for technology to help us simplify it, I can only hope that when Trump burns it all down, the people who rebuild will be wise enough to do better.

Re: Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?

#20

Post by apical_dendrite »

handoflixue wrote: post #15
bilbo0s wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's playing with fire. You could find yourself standing in front of a courtroom if something goes wrong, or God Forbid, if someone dies, trying to convince a judge and jury with nothing but, "I didn't need government permission". That's not a good place to be.

> if something goes wrong, or God Forbid, if someone dies Does emacs improve your typing speed? STOP! That's human experimentation!! That's the point of the article. Why would you worry someone is doing to die testing their typing speed, or filling out an online survey? You've probably conducts numerous Experimental Human Trials over your lifetime - anyone who is even slightly curious and empirical has!

Not accurate. As the article points out, there's a whole category for "benign behavioral interventions" which are exempt from IRB review.
Post reply on HN