Re: IRBs

In response to the following question:

> Ethics in research are often overseen by federal agencies or institutional review boards (IRBs). Is there a bottom-up, citizen-driven alternative to this?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a "bottom-up" alternative, but for institutions that don't have their own IRB, private IRBs can fill this need (see: http://www.consortiumofirb.org/faq/).
