[soneil]

I have to admit, I can completely understand how submitting source code patches to the linux kernel doesn't sound like human testing to the layman.

Not to excuse them at all, I think the results are entirely appropriate. What they're seeing is the immune system doing its job. Going easy on them just because they're a university would skew the results of the research, and we wouldn't want that.

[ineedasername]

Agreed: I can understand how the IRB overlooked this. The researchers don't get a pass though. And considering the actual harm done, the researchers could not have presented an appropriate explanation to their IRB.