Trials and Tribulations of Navigating IRBs: Anthropological and Biomedical Perspectives of "Risk" in Conducting Human Subjects Research

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Introduction

The Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects or "Common Rule" (1991) has undergone significant revision over the past decade, especially under the supervision of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC), whose charter expired in October, 2001, and the Department of Health and Human Services. As a president-appointed committee designed to oversee the ethical dimensions of human subjects research, NBAC (2001) proposed various efforts to strengthen the protection of humans participating in research. While these efforts reflect a laudable goal, they do not necessarily apply or translate well to all kinds of research, particularly ethnographic research. …