ACCOMMODATING ETHICAL
REVIEW: RESPONSE TO BOSK AND DE VRIES
Kevin D. Haggerty
There are few signs that the ethics review process for academic
research will
become less controversial in the coming years (Gunsalus 2002). In their
recent Annals
article “Bureaucracies of Mass Deception,” Bosk and De Vries (2004)
articulate
the familiar view that with respect to the social and behavioral
sciences that
Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) do little “to protect subjects from
harm or
guarantee ethical conduct from researchers” and that the review process
“may
impose more harm than benefit” (11). The question then becomes how we
should
respond to a system that is clearly wanting and often highly resented?
While
many social scientists continue to demand that these boards be
eliminated, the
authors advocate a more accommodating position that recognizes the
inevitability of prospective review and the need to work within the
existing
structure to reform its most glaring problems.
Having
served for four years as a member of a Research Ethics Board (the
Canadian
equivalent of an IRB) I probably come very close to their
characterization of
someone who has had to accommodate this system. Nonetheless, my
sympathies lie
with some of the most strident critics of this bureaucracy.
Consequently, I
think it is important to question some of Bosk and De Vries’
assumptions about
the inevitability of the current structure and the likely unintended
consequences of their own reform proposals. I conclude by offering some
very
brief words in support of the most extreme critics of the research
ethics
structure.
As
they note, a common rhetorical strategy of the critics of the research
ethics
bureaucracy is to compare the situation relating to the ethical
oversight of
academic research with that
of
journalistic investigations
(Nelson 2004). Notwithstanding the fact that journalists
routinely
produce knowledge usingprocedures that resemble basic
academic methodologies (Haggerty 2004b), journalists are not subject to
ethical
scrutiny. Bosk and De Vries advance several reasons why such
comparisons with
journalism are inappropriate, focusing on differences between the
academy and
journalism. However, things are not as clear-cut as they imply, as is
evident
by the fact that the implications of their arguments would seem to lead
them to
positions diametrically opposed to the ones they advance.
First,
they point out that journalists, unlike academics, are not
professionals.
Unfortunately, they do not follow the implications of this distinction
to its
logical conclusion. They ignore the fact that professionals typically
have
levels of training and expertise not evident in non-professional
occupations
that justify their greater discretionary latitude. Bosk and De Vries
end up in
the curious position of suggesting that the heightened ethical
oversight of
academic knowledge production is justified precisely because academics
are
professionals. Second, they note that journalism, unlike the academy,
is a
commercial enterprise. Again, they do not explore the implications of
this
difference for how knowledge production should be policed in journalism
and the
academy. Hence, the less commercial nature of the academy as opposed to
journalism would lend itself to an argument that
academics require significantly less
ethical vetting than journalists. Such a case would be particularly
compelling
given the social importance of journalistic knowledge which is now the
dominant
factor shaping public debate, election results and policy development
(Haggerty
2004a), and the way in which commercial interests can bias the
production of
such knowledge. So, while the authors stress that journalists and
academics are
different, the differences they identify can paradoxically serve as
justifications
for why academics should be subject to less ethical scrutiny than
journalists.
Ultimately,
the comparison with journalism is important because of how it is
invoked to
accentuate the claim that IRBs infringe on the right of freedom of
expression
in a way that would be intolerable in other contexts. Bosk and De
Vries,
however, are unconvinced. They point out
that as academics are not journalists
“we have no reason to expect the same rules to apply” (7) to these
different
institutions. In fact, from a constitutional perspective, I would
expect that
we have every reason to start from the assumption that the same rules pertaining to freedom
of expressionshould apply to
journalists, academics and anyone else. Freedom of speech is not
exclusively a
journalistic right, but one that is guaranteed to all citizens.
Certainly, as
the authors also point out, free speech is not absolute and the Supreme
Court
has allowed reasonable constraints on this important right (Fish 1994).
However, simply pointing this out does not justify the
constraints
on scholarly research, but only pushes the matter back a
level to whether these limitations are reasonable. This is ultimately
the heart
of the matter, and I suspect that many of the individuals demanding
that IRBs
be eliminated are, in their own way, positing that the restrictions on
speech
inherent in the IRB structure are often quite unreasonable.
For
the review process to be deemed reasonable one would have to
demonstrate that:
(1) IRBs are required to serve an important social purpose, and (2)
that this
purpose cannot be achieved in a less onerous fashion. Plausible
arguments can
be fashioned that neither of these criteria are met in the current
operation of
IRBs. It is unclear, for example, that there was ever any demonstrated
‘need’
for a formal bureaucratic system of ethical oversight for social
scientific
research. As Wax (1985) has noted, the origins of research ethics
oversight for
the social sciences in the United States donot resemble anything
approaching a
careful consideration of the objective requirements for such a system.
Instead,
the behavioral sciences were included almost as an afterthought to a
ethics
regulatory system that was being fashioned for biomedical research.
Moreover,
I suspect that the socially desirable aim of protecting social
scientific
research participants can be achieved without the current ethics review
structure through a combination of measures that are both less
constitutionally
objectionable and bureaucratically onerous. These could include such
things as
mandatory ethics training for graduate students, ethics accreditation
for researchers,
the re-invigoration of
discipline-specific codes of research
ethics, and exemptions for broad fields of research that pose few
ethical
concerns.
The
authors are curious about why social scientists, particularly
ethnographers,
continue to complain about the
research ethics system and demand that it be eliminated, whereas
medical
scientists have adopted “a policy of weary, self-resigned compliance
coupled
with minor or major evasion.” In practice, I suspect that the majority
of
social scientists have adopted the latter position. That said, it is
probably
not very difficult to explain the greater degree of animosity directed
towards these
boards by social scientists. The difference is likely due to the
extreme
contrast in the risks that these different fields of inquiry typically
pose to
research participants. Given the litany of documented ethical abuses
that have
been produced by the medical and biological sciences which risked or
harmed the
physical well-being of research participants (Beecher 1966; Goliszek
2003), it
is not surprising that the medical community seems more resigned to the
inevitability of ethical review. In contrast, the risks of social
scientific
research appear to be of an entirely lower level of magnitude. It is
this
difference in the perceived levels of potential harms posed by the
respective
styles of research which I suspect accounts for the greater stridency
among the
social scientific opponents of the ethical review structure.
While
it is unclear if Bosk and De Vries are actually advocating that social
scientists employ a series of “minor or major evasions” to the ethics
structure, I believe that this is indeed already occurring and it is a
troubling development. The problem is not that such evasions
necessarily result
in unethical conduct – indeed, I suspect that these forms of everyday
resistance are most common in those situations where ethically
unproblematic
research does not fit easily into the formal research ethics structure.
Instead, I am concerned that as such evasions become routine it sets
the stage
for a capricious form of governance; one where the violation of rules
is
common, but where the individuals who are singled out for punishment
will tend
to be the most vulnerable or marginal members of the academy. Such a
dynamic is
inherent in any regulatory system where large groups of individuals
routinely
ignore a set of rules they perceive to be unnecessary or illegitimate.
In
lieu of vociferously demanding the elimination of IRBs, Bosk and De
Vries
advocate a strategy of working with the system to rectify its glaring
problems.
They offer a series of proposals typical of such a reformist approach
that are,
on their face, unobjectionable. That said, how one relates to the
specifics of
such proposals is ultimately animated by your particular fears about
these
bureaucracies. In my own case, I am worried about an expanding and
intensifying
research ethics bureaucracy that seems poised to continue to
proliferate,
becoming more onerous and unwieldy in the process. When the reform
proposals of
Bosk and De Vries are scrutinized in light of such concerns it is clear
that
they also contain the possibility of some unintended undesirable
consequences.
For
example, the authors call for greater training of IRB members, which
would
undeniably be a welcome development. Board members are routinely
unfamiliar
with the research ethics guidelines when they start working on these
committees, and often know very little about the practicalities of
research
beyond their own narrow specializations. However, introducing mandatory
training for IRB members would also add an additional layer of
bureaucracy to
this system and would formalize what is now a largely voluntary
arrangement
working on the good will of all involved.
Assignments
to these boards are temporary and made on the basis of administrative
convenience. Membership typically involves a considerable expenditure
of time
and energy better devoted to other tasks. If membership starts to
necessitate
anything approaching a serious training regime the question arises of
who would
allow themselves to be coerced into such a committee? Certainly there
is a good
chance that many PhD qualified researchers would see such training as
time-consuming, pointless and patronizing.
Moreover,
the formalization of training would contribute to the greater
entrenchment of a
cadre of university officials whose career trajectories increasingly
revolve
around the internal dynamics of the research ethics bureaucracy itself. The authors also call for a better system for
appealing IRB decisions. This, again, is perfectly reasonable. In Canada, one of the glaring problems
with the
ethical review system is that across the country – and sometimes even
within
the same university – different research ethics boards make
contradictory
decisions. Occasionally, some of these verdicts are patently absurd. A
better
appeals process would go a long way towards rectifying these problems.
At the
same time, an appeals structure would add yet another unwelcome layer
of
bureaucracy and legal formality to the existing system.
Bosk
and De Vries’ position is ultimately that ‘What is not open is whether
a
prospective review of research will exist” (8). They concede too much
too
readily. Certainly, in the history of bureaucratic regulation more
dramatic
developments have transpired than the elimination or radical
restructuring of
the research ethics bureaucracy. In demanding the impossible (or highly
improbable) the more strident critics serve the important function of
shifting
debate away from the consensus assumptions of the existing research
ethics
bureaucracy. They force officials to try and justify the system’s
existence, while
demanding answers to difficult and important questions about whether
the
current system accomplishes any of its professed goals, what legal and
bureaucratic factors are truly driving this system, whether its social
and
economic costs can be justified, and, most importantly, if it is
possible to
promote ethical research through a radically different structure of
governance.
Any fundamental changes in that direction are not likely to derive from
an
exclusively accommodationist, reform-oriented trategy.
References
·
Beecher, H.E. 1966. “Ethics and
Clinical
Research.” New England Journal
of Medicine 274:1354-1360.
·
Bosk, Charles L., and Raymond
G. DeVries.
2004. “Bureaucracies of Mass Deception: Institutional Review Boards and
the
Ethics of
EthnographicResearch.”Annals,AAPSS:1-15.
·
Fish, Stanley. 1994. There's No Such Thing
as Free
Speech and its a Good Thing Too. New York: Oxford University Press.
·
Goliszek, Andrew. 2003. In the
Name of
Science. New York:
St.
Martin's.
·
Gunsalus, C.K. 2002.
“Rethinking Protections
for Human Subjects.” Chronicle of Higher Education November:15.
·
Haggerty, Kevin D. 2004a.
“Displaced
Expertise: Three Constraints on the Policy Relevance of Criminological
Thought.” Theoretical
Criminology 8:211-231. Haggerty, Kevin D. 2004b. “Ethics
Creep:
Governing Social Science Research in the Name of Ethics.”
Qualitative
Sociology
27.
·
Nelson, Cary. 2004. “The Brave
New World
of Research Surveillance.” Qualitative Inquiry 10:207-218.
·
Wax, Murray L. 1985. “Human Rights and
Human
Subjects.” Sociological Inquiry 55:423-424.
Discussion Forum: The American Academy of Political and Social
Science, 2005, URL
is: http://www.aapss.org/section.cfm/1058.
Kevin Haggerty is a
professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta.
Newsletter, April 2005-Text