A lesson in putting obstruction before ethics. Eye witness: Sri Lanka.

A medical student from England spent 2 months in Sri Lanka to conduct an observational study on the impact of the Sri Lankan public health program on knowledge about HIV infection. The data were to be collected from interviews with 600 anonymous clients of a prenatal clinic. The purpose of the study was to determine how best to tailor disease-prevention communication to different sectors of a population. Despite the straightforward nature of the questionnaire it was rejected by the Ethics Committee at Kerapitiya Hospital and the student realized that she would never receive permission to do this research.