Why not exempt social research?

One of the major propositions that the critics of IRB review of social research put forth is that minimal risk social research with competent adults should be completely exempt from IRB review. On the surface, this makes some sense. We're talking about research that is unlikely to harm anyone and where adults can decide for themselves whether to participate. Why do we need to review such research? Based on my experience personally reviewing thousands of research protocols in the social sciences, there is one basic problem with this - researchers are human beings. Human beings are not perfect - they overlook things, make mistakes and and can't be totally objective about their own work. If researchers were perfect, if they always took all of the ethical issues into account when planning and conducting their research, then we wouldn't need IRB review. But they are not perfect - none of us are perfect. So, every research activity needs an independent, objective review.

That being said, IRBs are not perfect either. IRBs are made up of human beings as well. In my experience, IRB members often become hyper-critical when they review other researchers' protocols. They tend to drift into the mind set of "what are we going to find wrong with this one." IRB members have to keep reminding themselves that the IRB is not like a funding agency scientific review panel, they are not there to critique the research, but to make sure that the research is being done ethically. In fact, I often say that the mission of the IRB is not to protect human subjects but to facilitate ethical research. Every time they review a protocol they should be thinking "how can we help this good research go forward, ethically."

If researchers would recognize the necessity and value of the IRB review and IRB members (and administrators) would recognize that their mission is to help the researchers do it right rather than catch them doing it wrong, then a lot of the tension between IRBs and researchers would go away.