Our IACUC (public primarily undergrad instituion) deals mostly with
teaching protocols (primarily rats and mice) and some field research
(birds, frogs, fish, turtles)...no biomedical research or toxicology
studies.  We have received a request from a student to attend an IACUC
meeting so that she can complete a Bachelor's essay on animal research
ethics. According to her proposal, she intends to "focus on the legal
issues involved in animal research...codes of ethics...and organized
institutions such as the IRB [sic] that evaluate proposals and supervise
ongoing research on aninmals" and to try to assess "how closely these
laws are actually followed" (no additional detail of who is to be
studied in the determination of compliance with the laws).  The proposal
is sufficiently sketchy to prevent us from assessing her personal stance
on use of animals in research.

This is the first time anyone--student, faculty member, or John Q.
Public--has asked to attend any of our compliance committee meetings as
an observer.  We have explained that much of the work goes on outside
the committee meetings and have suggested to that we can provide much
more useful information by meeting with her, suggesting references that
she has not yet identified (including all the government, AALAS, AAALAC,
etc. materials), and explaining our policies and procedures.  But the
faculty advisor is still pushing for her attendance at a meeting without
strongly supporting the other information collection methods we have
suggested..

My thoughts at this point are, at the very least:  (1) require the
student to meet with us (IACUC chair and staff) to more fully explore
the nature of her proposed project; (2) based on outcome of the
exploration meeting, submit her request to the entire IACUC for review
and approval (3) as a condition of approval, require her to do some
indepth background work before attending the meeting (4) restrict her
attendance to protocol reviews for which the investigator has given
permission for her inclusion and (5) require her sign a confidentiality
agreement about specific protocols.

However, before I spend a lot of time on this, I'd like to know if
anyone else out there has had a similar request and how you handled it.
Even if you haven't, if there are potential pitfalls, please give me a
heads-up.Note that we are aware that this is a widely debated topic on
our campus.  We don't want to appear that we are trying to hide
anything; on the other hand, we do have concerns about confidentialty,
appropriateness, and ramifications.

Thanks!
Barbara

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==================================================================
Barbara H. Gray, Director
Office of Research & Grants Administration
College of Charleston
66 George Street
Charleston, SC  29424
Campus Location:  407-G Bell Bldg.
Office: 843.953.5673  Desk: 843.953.5885  Fax:  843.953.6577
e-mail:  xxxxxx@cofc.edu   URL: http://www.orga.cofc.edu/
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