Ethics boards tend not to be utilitarian (or on many cases, even consequentialist) in their judgements. Many times their rules happen to improve net good, but that's not their goal.
The principle of informed consent stems from a deontological "do no harm" perspective, rather than a balance of value perspective. On the whole, I don't trust anyone to know my utility very well, so this over-caution seems best to me. But it's clearly not optimal from an outside perspective.
Ethics boards tend not to be utilitarian (or on many cases, even consequentialist) in their judgements.
Likely, but having a review board may still yield a net utilitarian outcome compared to not having one.
Is the harm that the average ethical review board prevents less than the harm that they cause by preventing research from happening? Are principles such as requiring informed consent from all research participants justifiable from an utilitarian perspective?