공용기관생명윤리위원회의 과제와 개선방향

Abstract

It has been 4 years since the Public Institutional Review Board (Public IRB) was created according to the amendment of the Bioethics and Safety Act in February, 2013. The Public IRB has played a role in protecting the rights, safety, and welfare of human subjects, enabling the researchers at small and medium-sized institutions, who had difficulties in establishing and operating their own Institutional Review Borad (IRB), to carry out their researches in an ethical manner. However, the limits of Public IRB also exist. The professional growth of Public IRB does not keep up with the fast growing diversity of research objects sent to the Public IRB review. The thesis demonstrates how this leads the Public IRB to conduct a less demanding evaluation on the scientific values of each study, such as feasibility, validity, and reliability, compared with that on ethical values. In a twist of irony, this results in unethical behavior, which is mobilizing volunteer test subjects for the scientifically inaccurate studies. To resolve the problem, this thesis proposes that the Public IRB should set out the strict controls and monitoring requirements for the scientific feasibility of studies, and consist of members from various backgrounds. Also, regular training programs for the Public IRB committee members and more frequent researcher interviews on a face to face basis are required, and the Public IRB should impose strict penalties when researchers does not implement to the Research Agreement. Lastly, the thesis suggests that the Public IRB should take immediate steps to protect human subjects' 'right to know', so that the Public IRB can set a good example for many other IRBs.