Univ. Issues Safety Rules For Research

Research experiments involving students are now under stricter University control as the result of a policy statement adopted by the Corporation last Spring, and circulated among the Faculty this Fall.

The directive will govern all research conducted outside the Medical School where similar regulations have been in force for five years.

The report, which governs "the participation of healthy human beings as subjects in research," gives the Environmental Health and Safety division of the University Health Services the power to review experiments involving "research procedures that are likely to involve consequences beyond the ability of many investigators to evaluate accurately."

If the Health and Safety division actually disapproved of a proposed experiment, the researcher would not be permitted to conduct his project in the University.

To insure adherence to its statement of policy, the University gives each department the power to appoint a committee which "shall have power to require that the investigator obtain approval from. . .Environmental Health and Safety, before going ahead to recruit subjects for his research." To date only the Social Relations Department has such a committee, and it was formed before the Corporation directive was issued.

The University also has conferred on these committees the power to request that any proposed experiment be submitted to it for evaluation.

Other restrictions which have been tacitly accepted for years have been formalized in the report's eleven point Statement of Policy. Benjamin G. Ferris, Jr. '40, Director of Environmental Health and Safety, said yesterday that the present formulation did not impose significantly greater restrictions than in the past, but was rather an attempt to codify established procedure and call it to the attention of the people involved.

Since the report was adopted last April, Ferris said that he had evaluated and approved four to five projects, but he felt he would be consulted on more experiments as the year progressed.

If a questionable project involving students were not cleared through Health and Safety, Ferris said he would expect that the Deans and he "would inquire as to why the experimenter had not complied with the Corporation's directive."

He was, however, quick to insist that the Environmental Health and Safety division would not abridge any researcher's academic freedom. "The statement doesn't mean we will be looking over his shoulder. We don't pass on the quality of his research, but only on the safety of the volunteer subjects.