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Previous Volume 347:1285-1286 October 17, 2002 Number 16 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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To the Editor: A "central institutional review board," as proposed by Christian et al. (May 2 issue),¹ may be a national ethics review board or a central research ethics committee, but it cannot be an institutional review board (IRB). By definition, a central board "at the national level" transcends an institution.

The continued use of the term "institutional review board" may merely be the result of a habit that is hard to break, or it might reflect something deeper. The term does not contain the word "ethics," implicitly elevating the institutional focus over the ethical focus. It also suggests that . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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