But is this really a matter for the ethics committee?

Abstract

As Institutional Ethics Committees deal with an ever-increasing number and variety of research projects, some problematic issues are beginning to emerge, IECs are finding themselves discussing not only the “obvious” ethical issues such as informed consent and confidentiality, but also matters which are not so obviously ethical: is the methodology sound, is the research worthwhile, to what use will the findings be put? On these and similar issues, members of ethics committees not infrequently hear the anguished question “But is this really a matter for an ethics committee”? This paper will argue that concern about these issues is legitimate and that at least some of these questions should be explicitly taken into account by ethics committees.