> An IRB did in fact approve the research as part of the peer review publication process. The IRB did not approve the research, it declared that it was "exempt

> An IRB did in fact approve the research as part of the peer review publication process. The IRB did not approve the research, it declared that it was "exempt". That's essentially a determination that the research poses absolutely no risk of harm to anyone and does not require a detailed review, which seems like a very questionable decision to me. One of the things that's worth investigating is whether the researchers were honest in describing their experiment to the IRB. Also, it's been alleged that the IRB exemption was only sought after the research was conducted and the paper was submitted for publication. If true, that seems to imply that they lied on their NSF grant application, because the principal investigator would have had to certify that either the research did not involve human subjects or that they had already applied for IRB approval/exemption.