Privacy Statement

PRIVACY NOTICE TO VISITORS
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SAFE HARBOR PRIVACY STATEMENT
Thank you for visiting The EMMES Corporation's website. EMMES is committed to pursuing truth and knowledge in health applications, with our highest priority being to maintain the highest ethical standards in scientific research and service to our clients. EMMES recognizes the ethical obligation to protect the confidentiality of the data in our possession, and is in full agreement and compliance with the seven principles of Safe Harbor, providing for the privacy of international data transfer:

1. Notice: Since 1977, The EMMES Corporation has been providing statistical analysis and medical data management support to clinicians, biomedical scientists and health administrators in the industry, academic, and government arenas. Research Study Groups and The EMMES Corporation ensure that individuals are well informed about all aspects of the clinical trial research before they are allowed to take part in a study. Individuals are aware of the purpose of the research, what data will be collected, and how the data will be used.

2. Choice: The very nature of clinical research trials and statistical analyses demand confidentiality and privacy for the individual. Sensitive issues that might be encountered by The EMMES Corporation, such as "medical or health conditions, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership or information specifying the sex life of the individual" are topics that are protected. For data containing this information to be re-purposed or disclosed to a third party, the individuals would have to agree to such a re-purposing, and must choose to 'opt in' to this data transfer before such a transfer could take place.

3. Onward Transfer: Should The EMMES Corporation wish to transfer collected data to a Third Party, Contractor or Collaborator, it will first determine that the Third Party subscribes to the guidelines of Safe Harbor, or has a similarly acceptable privacy policy in place. EMMES will not share participant-identified data with an organization without participant consent prior to implementation of this principle.

4. Security: The EMMES Corporation collects, stores, processes and protects data collected for clinical research. Staff members with data access have signed a statement of guideline adherence. We have instituted internal hardware and software protections as well as physical safeguards. Hard copy, disks, tapes, etc., containing collected data are kept in a locked location, and attended to by authorized staff members. Computer data can be accessed only after proper sequencing of keywords and pass codes, known only to the research investigators. Physical facility security featuring electronically keyed door codes with cipher card access to our offices, and cipher card entry into the building, adds an extra layer of security.

5. Data Integrity: As noted above, The EMMES Corporation takes steps to ensure that the integrity of the data we collect is accurate, complete, and current. We collect only data that are specific to our research study, nothing more.

6. Access: Typically speaking, an individual has the right to reasonable access to the information collected about him/her. However, EMMES only collects and processes data for clinical research studies and statistical analyses, and study participants are aware that this type of data collection poses limited threat to an individual's privacy. Whenever possible, we do not collect participant identifiers; in the absence of identifiers, access is not possible. If an individual does still seek access, s/he should seek it primarily from the physician or other health care provider from whom s/he received treatment. An access request is tempered by its reasonableness and proportionality to the study as a whole.

7. Enforcement: The EMMES Corporation is committed to absolute compliance with the seven principles of the Safe Harbor, and to doing everything possible to ensure that our compliance is thorough. An individual with a non-compliance concern is invited to contact the corporation's officers, Donald M. Stablein, Ph.D, President, or Anne S. Lindblad, Ph.D., Vice-President, via e-mail: (http://www.emmes.com), or by writing to them at:

The EMMES Corporation
401 North Washington Street
Suite 700
Rockville, Maryland, U.S.A. 20850

Should discussions with Drs. Stablein and/or Lindblad not satisfy the individual's concerns adequately, the matter will be passed to The EMMES Corporation's Institutional Review Board (IRB). If there continues to be no acceptable resolution, the matter will be submitted to a Third Party.