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Institutional Review Board * FOREWORD * A first edition of the Guidebook was produced in the early 1980s under contract for the
President's Commission by Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R).
PRIM&R is a Boston-based, nonprofit organization that sponsors annual conferences on
topics related to the protection of human subjects. The present Guidebook is a revised, updated, and expanded second edition, prepared under
contract by Robin Levin Penslar, Research Associate at the Poynter Center for the Study of
Ethics and American Institutions, in consultation with the Office for Protection from
Research Risks and its numerous advisors. The Poynter Center is an independent ethics
center housed at Indiana University. Return to Index Page
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Guidebook
The impetus for developing this Guidebook for Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) was a
finding of need by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in
Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research. In its 1981 report, Protecting Human
Subjects: The Adequacy and Uniformity of Federal Rules and their Implementation, the
Commission stated that it "is clear that researchers and IRB members desire help both in
understanding the policies and principles that underlie the regulations governing research
with human subjects, and in identifying the issues to which one should be sensitive in
designing or reviewing research proposals".
Foreward