The difficulties and costs of ethical assessment of a national research project

In 1990 we applied to the 14 area health board ethical committees for approval of a national study of childhood cancer. All the committees approved the study, but the process was time consuming and costly. The times taken for the committees to grant approval, ranged from two to 36 weeks. The committees had differing requirements. We recommend that a single ethical committee should take responsibility for dealing with each multicentre study in New Zealand. This would ensure uniformity of approach, and minimise delays and costs.