Pennsylvania Nurses Encourage IRB ParticipationAuthor(s): Carol LevineSource: IRB: Ethics and Human Research, Vol. 1, No. 6 (Oct., 1979), p. 11Published by: The Hastings CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3564252 .

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Pennsylvania Nurses Encourage IRB Participation

Susanne Robb, Ph.D., chairperson of the Pennsylvania Nurses Association (PNA) Commission on Nursing Re- search, has announced the Commis- sion's undertaking of a one-year plan to promote the establishment of institu- tional review committees to protect human subjects involved in research. In addition, the Commission is encour- aging the involvement of professional nurses on these committees within all acute care facilities and schools of nursing in the Commonwealth.

The Commission established need for nurse involvement in this area when survey response revealed that many institutions and agencies did not have an institutional review board in place to review research proposals and that in many cases nurses were not represented on committees who were reviewing proposals.

The Commission, which initiated its project in April 1979, has as its goal the establishment of a research review committee within all acute care facili- ties and schools of nursing. For more information, contact David R. Ranck, R.N., Associate Executive Director, Pennsylvania Nurses Association, 2515 N. Front Street, Harrisburg, Pa. 17110.

Carol Levine

NNOTATIONS

Brackbill, Yvonne, and Golden, Lori. "Public Opinion on Subject Participa- tion in Biomedical Research: New Views on Altruism, Perception of Risk, and Proxy Consent." CLINICAL RE- SEARCH, 27:1 (February 1979), 14-18 [Dr. Yvonne Brackbill, Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 32611].

The purpose of this study was to so- licit public opinion on willingness to volunteer one's self and others as sub- jects of biomedical research and to up- date a ten-year-old study of this kind by Martin et al. (New England Journal of Medicine 279: 1426-1431, 1968).

The authors asked 915 respondents from Gainesville, Florida, to complete a questionnaire asking who among 14 subject classes (e.g. children, mentally retarded, fetuses, prisoners) should volunteer as subjects in five studies of varying riskiness (syphilis, malaria, rabies, common cold, air pollution).

In comparison to Martin et al.'s re- sults, the study found: (1) considerably less altruism in willingness to volun- teer, (2) increased perception of risk (especially concerning pollutants), (3) greater frequency in volunteering sub- jects not requiring proxy consent, and (4) stronger feeling that among those

needing proxy consent, fetuses were seen as needing less protection than others.

Levine, Robert J., "Clarifying the Con- cepts of Research Ethics." HASTINGS CENTER REPORT 9 (June 1979), 21-26 [R. J. Levine, MD, Professor of Medi- cine and Lecturer in Pharmacology, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St., Rm. C-407 SHM, New Haven, CT 06510].

Levine maintains that the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, in its later re- ports (on children, on those institu- tionalized as mentally infirm, and on IRBs), made policy recommendations that are more rational than those made by any of its predecessors.

It is Levine's view that four impor- tant conceptual clarifications were made when the Commission (1) devel- oped satisfactory definitions of re- search and practice; (2) abandoned the distinction between therapeutic and nontherapeutic research; (3) clarified the concept of risk; and (4) identified the different purposes of informed con- sent and the consent form.

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gress, this section of Talmadge's bill would waive regulations for experi- ments with respect to coverage, copay- ment, deductibles or other limitations on payments for services. The provi- sion would apply only to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement and adminis- trative activities and does not apply to the actual diagnosis or treatment of pa- tients.

The legislation was introduced as a result of a U.S. District Court ruling in Georgia in Crane v. Mathews (417 F. Supp. 532 [1976 ]). The class action suit had been brought on behalf of all Geor- gia Medicaid beneficiaries and chal- lenged the state's demonstration project, which imposed copayments for some types of mandated medical care. The issue, according to the court, was whether the Medicaid recipients were human subjects, not whether they were at risk, a determination that must be made by an IRB. The court ruled that the plaintiffs came under the category of human subjects and or- dered the rest of the project submitted to an IRB for review.

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