I’m not arguing that ethics boards cant be overly stringent. But there’s a reason we have them in the first place and that still doesn’t make it alright to start conducting unauthorised experiments on people.

Even if it turned out OK in this case, and we still can’t say that it definitely did, the next person who trys to pull a stunt like this might not be so lucky, qualified, or knowledgable.

What’s the alternative here?