The Institutional Review Board

Experimentation on Human Subjects

While it remains debatable whether remote viewing experiments fall under guidelines for experimentation on human subjects, government experiments of this sort were often determined by legal counsel to constitute ‘human use.’ We elected to take the conservative course and meet minimal human use requirements, including forming an institutional review board (IRB) and providing disclosure/consent forms for all subjects.

Institutional Review Board

The IRB consisted of six members, including the following: Dr. Jessica Utts (professor, UC-Irvine, and board member, IRVA); Mr. Stephan Schwartz (board member, IRVA); Dr. Tom Brown (Thomas M. Brown, Psy.D. LLC); Dr. John Alexander (board member, IRVA); Mr. William Eigles (board member, IRVA); and Dr. Dean Radin (Institute of Noetic Studies). The IRB thus consisted of five male members and one female member, four of whom are members of IRVA’s governing board, and two of whom are outsiders. Additionally, on the board were a clinical psychologist (Brown), two scientists (Utts and Radin), an experienced researcher (Schwartz), an adviser to the Army Science Board (Alexander), and a legal advisor (Eigles). This configuration meets or exceeds basic requirements for IRB constitution as outlined by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Responsibility

The responsibility of the IRB is to review and approve the research proposal, experimental design, and human use documentation for compliance with the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Human Research Protections guidelines.

Activities

There were no risky or dangerous activities involved in the experiment. Subjects were asked to perform actions that they have themselves elected to undertake on their own many times in the past. They were fully briefed on what they are being asked to do to participate in the project, and were given a consent form to sign. All participants were over the age of 18.