title: Is the Australian HREC system unsustainable?
abstract: The Australian HREC system is now highly centralised and subject to national guidelines in an attempt to assure consistency of decision-making and of ethical standards. The penalty has been greatly increased paperwork and reporting requirements which many committees feel burdensome. In addition, many Committees may be under-resourced. However, I argue that though it is timely to reassess the current directions it is an exaggeration to claim that the system is in danger of collapse.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Royal Perth Hospital, Australia.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Millar
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D028744:Ethics Committees, Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D016526:Workload