The Ministry of Education yesterday announced that it has ordered National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) to halt a controversial project starting this month and to take measures to ensure the project complies with regulations.
DPP Legislator Chen Pei-yu (陳培瑜) in November last year said that an NTNU educator allegedly coerced university soccer team members to collaborate with experiments, and that team members were subjected to a three-times-a-day blood drawing for 14 consecutive days for years and threatened to fail them in courses if they did not comply.
The case could constitute a significant breach of research ethics, as the project head, a professor named Chen Chung-ching (陳忠慶), and others involved have allegedly violated the Human Subjects Research Act (人體研究法), the ministry said yesterday.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The ministry said that it had convened a meeting on May 19 following the university’s research and ethics committee’s finding that the incident was unethical.
The ministry concluded that, although the university committee found the incident unethical, neither the committee nor the university had taken further steps to oversee the program.
Chen and the project’s cohead were each fined NT$500,000 (US$16,998) and were banned from applying for research grants from the government or government-affiliated organizations for one year, the ministry said.
The university was fined NT$1.1 million and must halt all ongoing reviews of human subject research under the program starting this month. Additionally, it must make significant improvements regarding research project oversight within three months, as per the May 19 meeting.
The university issued an apology yesterday and said that it would implement measures to ensure that research ethics are upheld.
National Central University, whose faculty was involved in the project, yesterday issued a statement saying that its involvement was limited to examinations using non-invasive measures, such as heart-rate or pulse measuring using tablet computers or smart devices, adding that all research ethics committee regulations had been observed for that project.
Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital also said that the projects in which doctor Lin Ying-chou (林瀛洲) had participated complied with all regulations of the research ethics committee.
Humanistic Education Foundation executive director Joanna Feng (馮喬蘭) said the university’s punitive measures had only affected the finances of the professors involved and did not affect their careers.
Student victims were only notified of the results and received no compensation, Feng said.
Feng urged reforms that would make college University Faculty Evaluation Committees include outside members for a more balanced review.
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