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Dyck and Allen claim that the current model for mandatory ethical review of research involving human participants is unethical once the harms that accrue from the review process are identified. However, the assumptions upon which the authors assert that this model of research ethics governance is justified are false. In this commentary, I aim to correct these assumptions, and provide the right justificatory account of the requirement for research ethics review. This account clarifies why the subsequent arguments that Dyck and Allen make in the paper lack force, and why the 'governance problem' in research ethics that they allude to ought to be explained differently.

Original publication

DOI

10.1136/medethics-2012-100943

Type

Journal article

Journal

J Med Ethics

Publication Date

08/2013

Volume

39

Pages

527 - 528

Keywords

Ethics Committees/Consultation, Research Ethics, Beneficence, Biomedical Research, Ethics Committees, Research, Ethics, Research, Human Experimentation, Humans, Personal Autonomy, Research Personnel, Social Justice