This paper focuses on the REC and its political context to clarify the process of ethical review. The examples initially considered are taken from a Research Ethics Review editorial to develop the social explanation of the membership and function of a research ethics committee. It is suggested that the management and administration of medical matters are not always best understood solely in medical terms. The conclusion of the paper is that the larger political relationships determine the membership and function of (...) the research ethics committee. The REC is defined as the political mechanism for formally socializing medical research and its lay members as similarly socializing the REC. (shrink)

This paper seeks to clarify the process of ethical review primarily through a consideration of the lay member's role; it considers some of the conventional accounts of the role and portrays weaknesses in them. Its positive account places the ethical review service in a wide political context allowing the definition of lay member as a politically-positioned individual in the REC with the function of formally representing the public standards of morality in the medical research context.