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BACKGROUND: This article will look at two factors that led to the debate on research ethics committees in Norway in the 1970s and drove it forward: the revision of the Declaration of Helsinki by a Scandinavian working group and the focus on the so-called Gro case by the Norwegian national media. MATERIAL AND METHOD: We have used existing literature in the form of books and articles about the history of research ethics from the University Library at the University of Oslo and the National Library of Norway, the History of Science, Technology and Medicine database and Retriever. We have manually reviewed issues of the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet from 1974, and relevant years of the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association from the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, we have used the archives of the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions and the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Oslo. RESULTS: The revision of the Declaration of Helsinki by the World Medical Association in 1975 called for the use of independent ethics committees to review and provide guidance for research projects. The Gro case, which dealt with the testing of behavioural therapy on a young girl who lived in an institution, and the public debate around the case, led to calls from the public for clearer control of research and ethical regulation. INTERPRETATION: Both of the events mentioned were used actively to support arguments in favour of and in the preparatory works for the establishment of the Research Ethics Committees.

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