An independent committee of inquiry appointed by CAUT to investigate why computer files and documents were seized in a 2005 incident has issued an interim statement clearing two former University of Ottawa faculty members of wrongdoing.

On March 22, 2005, officials with the Royal Ottawa Hospital and the uOttawa Institute of Mental Health Research accessed the secured office and file room of psychiatrist Anne Duffy, without prior notice, and confiscated research records as well as closed down her research project database and moved documents maintained electronically to a different network drive.

Duffy and her colleague Paul Grof were leading a long-term psy­chiatric research study with human test subjects. They later learned their research material had been copied and that administrators with the Royal Ottawa and IMHR alleged they had violated research ethics guidelines, including failure to obtain proper informed consent.

While CAUT is still waiting for the release of the final report, the committee of inquiry has determined that the long-term nature of the study makes it impossible to verify with certainty if all subjects signed a consent form or not.

“What can be verified is whether research subjects knew that they participated in research and whether they had a good understanding of the nature of the research. This seemed clearly the case for all of the research subjects we interviewed,” the committee’s statement says. “They also expressed a strong confidence in the integrity of Dr. Duffy and in the importance of the research she conducted.”

The committee also found that the way in which the files were seized and the apparent inconsistencies between the copied materials and the originals make it inappropriate to draw any conclusions about the reasons why any consent forms were absent.

It concludes that it is unwarranted to allege Duffy and Grof committed serious violations of research ethics norms or good clinical research practices, based on its investigation made on the incident.