The institutional review board is crucial to ensure the scientific and ethical quality of human participant research. This paper analyzes a survey on the current constitution and operation of institutional review boards (IRBs) in Korea, conducted by the Korean Association of Institutional Review Boards in April 2002. Out of 74 IRBs, 63 responded to the survey (85.1% response rate). IRB membership has a male-to-female ratio of approximately 80:20, a predominance of male clinicians (60%) and an underrepresentation of community people unaffiliated to the institutions (less than 10%). Most IRBs (around 80%) confine the scope of their reviews to the clinical evaluation of drugs or devices, leaving the remaining areas of research involving human participants untouched. As their role is limited, the majority of IRBs do not operate actively: 72% of responding IRBs reviewed less than one protocol per month in 2001. Sixty two percent of institutions have never discussed the need for insuring research participants' risks or making indemnity arrangements. This survey reveals many shortcomings and points for improvement by the institutional support bodies, including the need to establish regular education programs for IRB members and investigators.
Appointments and Schedules ; Clinical Trials/legislation & jurisprudence ; Clinical Trials/standards ; Data Collection ; Epidemiologic Studies ; Ethics Committees, Research*/legislation & jurisprudence ; Ethics Committees, Research*/standards ; Ethics Committees, Research*/statistics & numerical data ; Female ; Human ; Human Experimentation/legislation & jurisprudence ; Human Experimentation/standards ; Korea ; Male ; Politics ; Public Policy ; Research Design/standards

The rapid developments of science and technology in China over recent decades, particularly in biomedical research, have brought forward serious challenges regarding ethical governance. Recently, Jian-kui HE, a Chinese scientist, claimed to have "created" the first gene-edited babies, designed to be naturally immune to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The news immediately triggered widespread criticism, denouncement, and debate over the scientific and ethical legitimacy of HE's genetic experiments. China's guidelines and regulations have banned germline genome editing on human embryos for clinical use because of scientific and ethical concerns, in accordance with the international consensus. HE's human experimentation has not only violated these Chinese regulations, but also breached other ethical and regulatory norms. These include questionable scientific value, unreasonable risk-benefit ratio, illegitimate ethics review, invalid informed consent, and regulatory misconduct. This series of ethical failings of HE and his team reveal the institutional failure of the current ethics governance system which largely depends on scientist's self-regulation. The incident highlights the need for urgent improvement of ethics governance at all levels, the enforcement of technical and ethical guidelines, and the establishment of laws relating to such bioethical issues.
CRISPR-Cas Systems ; China ; Consent Forms/ethics* ; Ethics, Medical ; Female ; Gene Editing/legislation & jurisprudence* ; Gene Knockout Techniques/ethics* ; HIV Infections/prevention & control* ; Human Experimentation/legislation & jurisprudence* ; Humans ; Infant, Newborn ; Pregnancy ; Professional Misconduct/ethics* ; Receptors, CCR5/genetics*