Did she get legitimate REC approval for SMILE do you know? Sorry I'm loosing track of it all.
The study application received ethics approval from South West 2 Local Research Ethics Committee.
For the original pilot study, the application had been reviewed on 8 July 2010 also by a South West Research Ethics Committee (REC) and ultimately received a favourable opinion on 8 September 2010.
Mrs Joan Kirkbride, Head of Operations, National Research Ethics Service:
"Subsequently the National Research Ethics Service (NRES) received a number of emails and letters about this study and, despite being satisfied with the ethical review, felt it fair to give consideration to the issues raised.
"It was clear that the application had received a considered and extensive review of the ethical issues of the project prior to the issue of the favourable opinion. This met all required procedures and processes, however, in view of the weight of correspondence received, much of which raised very similar issues, NRES asked the REC to consider the application, taking into account the issues that had been raised in the subsequent correspondence. Dr Hugh Davies, NRES Ethics Advisor provided a summary to the REC on the issues which had been raised and the opportunity was offered to Dr Crawley and the research sponsor to respond to the issues raised..."
Full comment from
Mrs Joan Kirkbride, Head of Operations, National Research Ethics Service
and
Extract of Minutes from South West 2 REC meeting held on December 2, 2010 (which includes Committee's responses to points discussed)
are archived here on my old ME agenda site:
https://meagenda.wordpress.com/2011...lation-to-smile-lighting-process-pilot-study/
Letter issued by NRES following scrutiny of complaints in relation to SMILE Lighting Process pilot study
January 6, 2011
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By the way, the original pilot study had initially proposed that the age range would be 8 to 18. By September 2010, this had been raised to age 12 to 18.
(
https://meagenda.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/smile-–-specialist-medical-intervention-and-lightning-evaluation-documents/ )