July 12, 1974
The National Research Act was signed into law, creating the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Revelations about the abuse of human research subjects, including the notorious Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (exposed by The New York Times in 1972), led to a movement to provide formal procedures to ensure that people were not subject to research that might endanger them in some way without their informed consent. This law led to the creation of Institutional Review Board (IRB) at universities and other research institutions to ensure the protection of human subjects.
