BMJ  2004;329 (31 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7460.0-g

Editor's choice

My last choice

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Do you need approval from an ethics committee to ring up chief executives of hospitals and ask them questions? As a journalist, a member of parliament, or a confidence trickster you wouldn't, but if you are a researcher who has drawn up a protocol you might. Ethics committees, which were devised to protect vulnerable patients from some abuse, have forgotten why they were created and have begun to equate chief executives with the unconscious or the mentally incompetent. They have, in other words, spun out of control.

No fewer than five sets of researchers describe a series of Kafkaesque experiences with ethics committees that have made research difficult or impossible (p 277, p 280, p 282, p 286, and p 288), and an editorial analyses other barriers to research (p 241). We commissioned only the editorial; the other pieces arrived spontaneously, reflecting . . . [Full text of this article]

Richard Smith, editor

(rsmith@bmj.com)


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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

We have no control
Neville W Goodman
bmj.com, 30 Jul 2004 [Full text]
Ride more than thou goest
John Hoey
bmj.com, 30 Jul 2004 [Full text]
Ethics Committees should facilitate research
Dr.Naseem A. Qureshi MD, IMAPA, LMIPS
bmj.com, 1 Aug 2004 [Full text]
Medical journals should collaborate with research ethics committees
Kayvan Shokrollahi
bmj.com, 3 Aug 2004 [Full text]
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