Jeremy Sugarman: Research Ethics Costs Money

Jeremy Sugarman keeps doing the research everybody else wishes they had thought to do. In the April 28th New England Journal of Medicine, Sugarman and others examined data from a number of major medical centers to assess the cost of IRBs. The operating costs "ranged from $171,014 to $4,705,333, with a median cost of $741,920," and that means that "institutions and policy-makers need to recognize the important role of the IRBs in protecting research participants so that they are not shortchanged." More important, the bigger the place, the cheaper the review - $400 for high-volume medical centers versus $600 for low volume spots.

What Sugarman doesn't say but is interesting nonetheless is that the median cost of $742K/yr for an IRB is about double the median support level for a bioethics program in an academic medical center. Lots of bioethics folks who are struggling for cash might want to consider annexing their IRB...