Ethics committees: impediments to research or guardians of ethical standards?

Abstract

In 1991 the Department of Health issued a memorandum that required everydistrict health authority to establish a research ethics committee.1 Before this memorandum considerable diversity in the practice of ethics committees had been noted.2 3 A research study focusing on the needs of and provision of care to children who might be expected to die during childhood was commissioned by the Department of Health. Parents of such children who were resident in four selected regional health authorities recruited themselves to the study through advertisements in voluntary group …