IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014 - 59

[26]. Research selection at the
university level is influenced by
many factors, including professional priorities and availability
of external funding. These factors tend to compromise the ideal
conception of academic scientists'
autonomy [25]. Academic scientists are directing research toward
subjects they feel are favored by
funding agencies [27]. The concept
of professional autonomy is thereby
rendered capricious.
Within many fields of social science and humanities, such as history,
literature, and philosophy, research
is conducted with little external
funding. Fields such as economics,
education, political science, and
sociology have more external funding sources available to them. However, external funding cannot support
all the subject matter within these
fields. It can be argued that social
science and humanities researchers tend to enjoy more autonomy
than those operating within the
constraints of external funding. Yet,
social scientists meet their own
threats to autonomy through restrictions imposed by IRBs.

with mental retardation in the
Willowbrook State School [30].
Researchers at the M.I.T. exposed
57 human subjects to radioactive
calcium between 1950 and 1953;
earlier in 1946, they had exposed
19 students to radioactive iron [31].
In the New York's Jewish Chronic
Disease Hospital study of 1963,
elderly patients were injected with
foreign, live cancer cells [32]. In
Milgram's 1961 obedience study,
human subjects were asked to give
what appeared to be real electric
shocks to another person [33].
Such cases confirm that the protection of human subjects by federal
regulations was often overlooked.
This is partly due to links between
the power of medical schools and
the pharmacology industry [34]. At
the time of the creation of IRBs,
there was no mention of human subjects in social science research, but
only in biomedical and behavioral
research in which there was direct
intervention in the human body and

Between 1999 and 2001, major
ethical misconduct occurred
in biomedical research at
prominent institutions.

Evolution: IRB and
Social Sciences
The establishment of IRBs is rooted
in national and international historical efforts designed to improve the
ethical conduct of biomedical and
behavioral research. In addition
to the research conducted in the
U.S., German physicians have conducted medical experiments from
1939 to 1944, in which prisoner's
experienced extreme pain, permanent injury, mutilation, and death
[28]. Within the U.S., the national
Public Health Service carried out
the Tuskegee Syphilis study from
1932 to 1972 on almost 400 lowincome black males by withholding
information about their disease and
preventing them from being administered penicillin [29]. Between
1956 and 1972, New York University researchers injected hepatitis serum into children diagnosed

collection or analysis of publically
available data. Expedited review
is used for research that poses no
more than a minimal risk to human
subjects. Generally, research on individual or group behavior and characteristics that employ ethnography,
focus group, interview, observation,
survey, and other such social science methods go through expedited
review. It is important to note that
whether or not research is exempt or
expedited is determined by the IRB;
the researcher can only apply for
exempt or expedited status from the
IRB.
In the 1980s and 1990s, however,
IRBs started enforcing regulations on
social-science research at higher levels [37]. Government-funded socialscience research that was previously
exempt now falls under IRB review.
IRB control has been extended to
non-funded social-science research,
as well as to graduate students' dissertations [38]. Some universities have
extended IRB requirements to under-

mind [35]. However, some restrictions were placed on social-science
research partially due to Laud
Humphrey's study, which involved
observing men having sex in public
restrooms from 1966 to 1968 [36].
Yet, IRBs were somewhat liberal
in their interpretation and implementation of federal regulations on
social science research.
For social sciences, two special
review categories were established:
exempt and expedited. The exempt
category implies that IRB review and
approval of research is not required
by federal regulations. It includes
research on educational instructional
strategies and tests for internal educational purposes; research involving
elected or appointed officials, and

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

WINTER 2014

graduate students who are writing
honors theses. In addition to getting
an IRB approval from the employing
institution, researchers may now have
to get additional IRB approvals from
those institutions where the study
will be conducted [39]. Increasingly,
online research sources (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, chat rooms, discussion
forums) about people, which do not
require login with password, are being
considered as publicly available data
by IRB, thus subject to its approval.
This shift in regulation enforcement is mostly because, between
the years 1999 and 2001, major
ethical misconduct occurred in
biomedical research at prominent
institutions (see, www.niehs.nih.
gov/research/resources/bioethics/
|

http://www.niehs.nih

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014