IFPTE Alerts Sen. Feinstein To Concerns on NASA's Troubling Centralization of Human Research Review

In a letter to Senator Diane Feinstein — who serves on the Senate Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Subcommittee — IFPTE outlined concerns with NASA’s new policy for reviewing and approving human research. The new policy was hastily implemented NASA’s Office of the Chief Medical Officer and moves human research review to one centralized Institutional Review Board.

The letter cites the agencies failure to consult with IFPTE and with Ames Federal Employees Union-IFPTE Local 30, which represents a number of principal investigators impacted the policy. Other IFPTE members and NASA research scientists are also impacted by the consolidation of several NASA research centers’ review authority into one review board.

Citing the safety, medical privacy, quality of research concerns associated with the new policy, IFPTE asks Senator Feinstein to restore independence and ensure ethical standards for human research through language in the fiscal year 2022 appropriations bill. 

Read the letter to Sen. Feinstein on NASA's Centralized Review of Human Research.