HHS and 15 other Federal Departments and Agencies Announce Revisions to the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects (the Common Rule)

January 18, 2017

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and fifteen other Federal Departments and Agencies have announced revisions to modernize, strengthen, and make more effective the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects that was originally promulgated as a Common Rule in 1991. This final rule is intended to better protect human subjects involved in research, while facilitating valuable research and reducing burden, delay, and ambiguity for investigators.
 
These revisions are an effort to modernize, simplify, and enhance the current system of oversight.
 
The final rule is being put on public display on January 18, 2017, by the Office of the Federal Register and can be accessed at: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/19/2017-01058/federal-policy-for-protection-of-human-subjects. It is expected that the final rule will be published in the Federal Register on January 19, 2017.
 
You can also read a summary of the changes from HHS here:
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2017/01/18/final-rule-enhances-protections-research-participants-modernizes-oversight-system.html
 
Per the summary:

"The final rule differs in important ways from the proposed rule. Some examples of proposals that, based on feedback from the public, are not being adopted, include:

  • The final rule does not adopt the proposal to require that research involving non-identified biospecimens be subject to the Common Rule, and it does not require that consent be obtained in order to conduct such research. In general, researchers can continue to use such biospecimens in the way they are currently using them.
  • To the extent that some of the NPRM proposals relied on tools or standards that had not yet been proposed, the final rule either does not adopt those proposals or includes revisions to eliminate such reliance. Examples of items that were not included in the final rule include a template to be used for broad consent forms, and a decision tool to be used for making exemption determinations.
  • The final rule does not expand the policy to cover clinical trials that are not federally funded.
  • The final rule does not adopt the NPRM’s proposed concept of “excluded” activities. Generally, activities proposed to be excluded are now described as not satisfying the definition of what constitutes research under the regulations or are classified as exempt.
  • The final rule does not include the proposed standardized privacy safeguards for identifiable private information and identifiable biospecimens. Instead, in most respects, it retains the current approach to privacy standards.
  • The final rule does not adopt the proposal for more stringent criteria for obtaining a waiver of the consent requirements for identifiable biospecimens.” 

Among the elements included:

  •  “Requirements, in many cases, to use a single institutional review board (IRB) for multi-institutional research studies. The proposal from the NPRM has been modified, however, to add substantial increased flexibility in now allowing broad groups of studies (instead of just specific studies) to be removed from this requirement.”