> IRBs issue waivers of consent fairly often, particularly if there's extremely low risk to participants and disclosing the research will significantly affect t

> IRBs issue waivers of consent fairly often, particularly if there's extremely low risk to participants and disclosing the research will significantly affect the results (both of which are true here). Apparently, the unwilling test subjects seems to strongly disagree with your conclusion in particular (I would guess) when it comes to the first point.