See Also: Ethics committee (EC)(health)
ethics(medicine)
ethics(encyclopedia)
Ethics(finance)
Ethics(money)
ethics committees(medicine)
Ethics approval(health)
teleological ethics(encyclopedia)
virtue ethics(encyclopedia)
ethics, professional(medicine)

Ethics committee (EC) (health)


an independent body (a review board or a committee, institutional, regional, national, or supranational) constituted of medical/scientific professionals and non-scientific members, whose responsibility it is to ensure the protection of the rights, safety, and well-being of human subjects involved in a trial and to provide public assurance of that protection by, among other things, reviewing and approving/providing favourable opinion on, the trial protocol, the suitability of the investigator(s), facilities, and the methods and material to be used in obtaining and documenting informed consent of the trial subjects. The legal status, composition, function, operations, and regulatory requirements pertaining to independent ethics committees may differ among countries, but should allow the independent ethics committee to act in agreement with GCP as described in the ICH guideline. See also institutional review board.