Author: Eva Pastor
Date: 02-06-10 20:02
Source: The Australian
URL: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/medical-ethics-means-taking-time/story-e6frg8y6-
Date published: February 6th 2010
Medical ethics means taking time
Stephen Leeder - February 06, 2010
I'VE chaired a research ethics committee at a leading Sydney teaching hospital for more than 20 years. I know their strengths and weaknesses. But I can tell you big pharma can be very heavy handed in trying to have local committees wiped out in favour of central committees made up of technical experts, and in pushing clauses into documents for legal protection of the sponsor, not the subject.
The threat to move drug trials to China says much when you look at the ethics of transplantation in that country.
As Canadian writer John Ralston Saul notes, instruments of democracy are cumbersome and time consuming compared with enterprises such as Wall Street banks, where rapid-fire decisiveness reaps bonuses.
This doesn't justify blatant inefficiency or weird idiosyncrasy. But much has been done with committee guidelines and uniform online research applications to improve processing speed.
The composition of ethics committees is designed to ensure participant understanding, safety and dignity. Some delay in the long march of new drugs from bench to bedside is to be expected.
Ethics committees are often blamed for slowing the review of research applications when the delays lie elsewhere, especially in assessing risk and cost to host institutions. These concerns have increased due to the tight constraints placed on publicly funded hospitals.
Stephen Leeder is director of the University of Sydney's Menzies Centre for Health Policy
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