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Research Ethics Board

About Us

The Research Ethics Board (REB) ensures that research involving human participation meets current scientific and ethical standards for the protection of participants. To achieve this objective, the REB:

  • Reviews all proposed research from scientific and ethical perspectives before the research is started.
  • Promotes the research ethics education of the research community.

The REB is appointed on behalf of St. Michael's Hospital, with whom it maintains an arms-length relationship. The Hospital mandates the REB to independently approve, reject, propose modifications to, or terminate any proposed or ongoing research involving human participants or human materials conducted within or by members of St. Michael's Hospital.

Decisions made by the REB are based on the scientific and ethical merits of the research study and are made independently of other Hospital interests. St. Michael's Hospital retains the authority to disallow the conduct of research, even if the research is approved by the REB.

Philosophy

Research involving human participants must be directed toward the benefit of humanity and the advancement of knowledge. Researchers are to conduct their research as critical and responsible professionals accountable to their research participants, to the society that supports their work, and to their colleagues, students and research institutions.

The REB is guided by the following principles:

  • Respect for a person's right for self-determination and autonomy.
  • Not harming others nor violating a person's fundamental rights of liberty and privacy.
  • Doing good to others, including society, research participants, researchers, sponsors and institutions.
  • Recognizing the duty of researchers to disseminate the analysis and interpretation of any significant results to the research community, since silence on negative outcomes may foster potentially harmful clinical practices or needless duplication.
  • Equitable distribution of the benefits and burdens of research.

Other Guidelines for the REB

The REB is attentive to local, national and international trends in research ethics that may bear upon research carried out at St. Michael's Hospital. Decisions regarding research protocols are directed by a number of key documents at local, national and international levels. These key documents include:

The "Tri-Council Policy Statement Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans" (TCPS):

  • Has been adopted as a national standard.

The International Conference on Harmonization (ICH): Good Clinical Practices (GCP)

  • Adopted by various directorates of Health Canada and provides the REB and researchers with internationally accepted standards to strive toward when working with drugs, medical devices, or natural health products (NHPs).

Part C, Division 5 of the Food and Drugs Act

  • The Therapeutic Products Directorate (TPD) of Health Canada uses these regulations to ensure that pharmaceutical drugs offered for sale in Canada are safe, effective and of high quality. Clinical trials involving drugs must meet the requirements set out in these regulations.

Natural Health Products (NHP) Regulations

  • These regulations provide a regulatory framework under which all research studies involving the use of Natural Health Products (NHPs) fall. These regulations are designed to ensure that NHPs are safe effective, and of high quality.

Medical Devices Regulations

  • The Medical Devices regulations govern the use of medical devices for use in research. Any research studies involving medical devices must comply with these regulations.

Personal Health Information and Protection Act (PHIPA), Ontario

  • One of the purposes of this act is to establish rules for the collection, use and disclosure of personal health information about individuals and to protect the confidentiality of that information; all studies involving the use of personal health information (PHI) must comply with the stipulations set out in this act.