The University of North Carolina which provided the EPA with a required institutionalreviewboard (IRB) for approving the experiments is also conducting an inquiry.
Siemionow, who has been working on face transplant research for 20 years, received approval from the InstitutionalReviewBoard in 2004 to conduct a full facial transplant.
Among military projects, that process is particularly bogged down, largely because of a requirement for review and oversight of study proposals by both an institutionalreviewboard and military officials.
The authors reported one study that found only 56 percent of 670 researchers surveyed in developing countries said their work had been reviewed by a local institutionalreviewboard or a health ministry.
Dr. HYNES: We concluded that women should be reimbursed for expenses and we left the exact amount to what's called an institutionalreviewboard, which all institutions that do human subject research have to have such a committee.
Undaunted by her reception at the conference, Ms. Swan went back to the other participants in the trial and suggested that they pursue a more professional tack including getting approval for the next phase of the trial from an institutionalreviewboard, just as traditional studies do.