I received a written request from the IRB, and unlike what was requested verbally during a meeting on Tuesday, the written request did not explicitly ask me to justify my duel role as a blind person who wants to conduct research with blind participants, nor did the requests explicitly state anything about blind people being a "vulnerable class". Since the former was a primary point of concern the IRB rep expressed during the meeting, and the latter arbitrary reclassification by the IRB was how the IRB rep justified changing my application from expedited to a full-board review, the two omissions are puzzling. The written request did bring up some legitimate concerns with my initial application, and I do need to clarify some of the information I submitted. However, I still have concerns about what is happening with the IRB. Although my blindness and the blindness of my participants were not explicitly cited as concerns in the written report, some of the requests for more!
information implied con
tinuing uneasiness with blindness. For example, I am still being asked to have a third party present at my interviews, and when one of my professors asked for documentation that this had been required from other researchers, she was told that documentation could not be provided. Overt ignorance was easier to deal with than covert ignorance.
Deborah Allen
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