Institutional Review Boards and Clandestine Research: An Experimental Test

A Case for Limiting the Reach of Institutional Review Boards

“…The prostitution case calls to mind a study that Hessler and Galliher (1983) did of an IRB and its members' views of clandestine research. This study has bearing on the prostitution business and employment cases because it shows how IRB members thought about the protection of privacy in the context of research that can only effectively be conducted without informed consent.…”

“…The Hessler and Galliher (1983) study set out to see how the new IRB exemptions worked by constructing a test of the ability to conduct research that was threatening to host institutions, potentially risky for research subjects, but that had high potential for achieving societal accountability as well as solving significant social problems.…”

“…Based on the Galliher and Donnell-Watson (2003) study of a prostitution business mentioned earlier, our paper addresses specific scientific and ethical issues that commonly and increasingly bedevil researchers seeking IRB and editorial approval to do as they are trained, namely investigate the social world and publish the findings for public verification and edification. We describe the pertinent facts of the case, revisit our earlier study of privacy induced IRB barriers to research (Hessler and Galliher 1983), present some of the ethical principles and frameworks that underpin the prostitution business case, and recommend major changes in the IRB regulations for the social sciences.…”

Questioning Professional Autonomy in Qualitative Inquiry

“…Initially, some scholars argued that IRBs were designed to address ethical challenges involving the inherent risks, hazards, and dangers to human subjects in biomedical research, rather than in social science research [1], [2]. Since the year 2000, scholars, reporters, and professional organizations have argued that IRBs have become rigid in their interpretations of federal regulations, and the enforcement of such regulations on social-science research has reached new and unprecedented levels [3]- [12].…”

Risks and Wrongs in Social Science Research

“…But this is not my focus here. 3 Of interest are social scientific program evaluators, many of whom seem extraordinarily sympathetic to IRB oversight but who also appear increasingly frustrated, annoyed, and upset by IRB decisions, inconsistencies, delays, and misunderstandings (Hessler, Galliher, and Reynolds 1983;Murray 1998;Niemonen 2000;Ross et al 2000;Shea 2000;Timmermans 1995;Warren and Staples 1989). Because no research may be conducted without IRB approval, it is understandable that strong feelings obtain.…”