December 8, 2006

Historians and IRB's

To the Editor:

In "Oral History Under Review" (The Chronicle, November 10), by Jennifer Howard, the power of institutional review boards to regulate and review all human-subjects research is assumed. This power is not ineluctable. In fact, federal law covers only human-subjects research supported by federal funds.

Institutions submit to the Office for Human Research Protections a document called a federalwide assurance, which spells out how — in general

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