Science Translational Medicine
5 May 2010 vol 2, issue 30
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/current

Policy
Institutional Review Boards, Professionalism, and the Internet
Robert Martensen

Abstract
Even as the Internet generates pressures that erode professional authorities of all kinds, it also provides opportunities for researchers and their institutional review boards to bolster their status as trusted sources. To this end, we must work to improve clinical protocol design and approval procedures and maintain the integrity of the study participant recruitment process in clinical trials.