PRIM&R Plans SBER Conference

Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R), the professional organization for human subjects enforcers, has scheduled the "2007 Social, Behavioral, Educational Research (SBER) Conference: Sharing Tools and Joining Forces: Ethical and Regulatory Balance in SBER." The conference will be held in Broomfield, Colorado, on May 9 and 10.

The conference is notable because its planning committee includes two scholars who have written quite critically of IRB review of non-biomedical research: C. Kristina Gunsalus and Joan E. Sieber. (An earlier announcement also listed Felice J. Levine, but her name does not appear on the website.)

The conference program includes two sessions that promise to wrestle with the murky questions of definitions and exemptions:

A4. Developing Guidance on the Definition of Human Subjects Research (IRB Tool Kit I Track) [Please note that this is a double session and will end at 1:15 PM. This session has been designed with the dual purpose of discussing strategies and contributing to a written document that will provide guidance, definitions, and examples. This document will be electronically distributed to all Conference attendees following the meeting.]

A5. Developing Guidance on Applying the Exemptions
(IRB Tool Kit II Track) [Please note that this is a double session and will end at 1:15 PM. This session has been designed with the dual purpose of discussing strategies and contributing to a written document that will provide guidance, definitions, and examples. This document will be electronically distributed to all Conference attendees following the meeting.]

Potentially these documents could provide IRBs the guidance and cover they need to exempt survey, interview, and observation research with autonomous adults. While I am sorry I will not be able to attend the conference, I am very interested to see what it produces.