PRIM&R stands in solidarity with the Jewish community by participating in the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s Hanukkah Shine A Light program, a national campaign created in response to increased antisemitism in 2021 in the United States. Read more
PRIM&R’s Annual Conference is some of the few days each year when everybody agrees that federal regulations are somehow appropriate for dinner conversation, I tried to steer the conversation that way at Thanksgiving, and it did not go well. Since I primarily work with SBE researchers, most of the sessions of the most interest to me are on that path. Read more
I was working at my first “real” full-time job after college as a research assistant on clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease when the HIPAA Privacy Rule first rolled onto the scene (let’s not do the math on this, it makes me feel old). I remember many in the research community having one of two immediate reactions to the new requirements: either “Oh my gosh, this is going to bring research to a screeching halt” or “This is completely unnecessary; we already get informed consent from participants so why do we need HIPAA?” While this is all ancient history now, and we obviously know that neither was research in the U.S. hobbled nor was HIPAA abandoned, it [...] Read more
How many of you can relate to this? I’m sure I’m not alone! To paraphrase a common idiom, “We may not have it all together, but together we have . . . most of it.” So, let’s all meet up at the all virtual 2022 PRIM&R Annual Conference(PRIMR22) December 12 -15 with workshops December 6 & 8! There is a packed agenda with crossover content for the entire research community. Read more
November 2022 PRIM&R research ethics roundup covers a new billion-dollar biomedical agency, the potential development of an mRNA vaccine against Ebola, lab-made red blood cells, and how red wine and green tea compounds could slow Alzheimer’s. Read more
The research ethics community mourns the loss of Charles R. McCarthy, PhD, a giant of the research ethics field and a beloved member of the PRIM&R family, who passed away on October 14, 2022, at the age of 96. ”Charlie,” as he was known to all who were lucky enough to know and work with him, served on the PRIM&R Board of Directors from 1993 to 2011. He was awarded PRIM&R’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Research Ethics in 2003, became a Distinguished Leader of PRIM&R in 2012, and was recognized as a Pillar of PRIM&R in 2021. Charlie was a true founding father of the field of human research protections. While at the NIH in the early 1970s, Charlie helped to draft the National Research Act for the US Congress. Enacted in 1974, the National Research Act created the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and required that Department of Health Education and Welfare (DHEW) create human subjects protection regulations. Charlie served as the DHEW liaison to the National Commission, which went on to create the Belmont Report, and drafted for DHEW the first set of regulations for the protection of human subjects of research. Read more
