Law Commons^™

Hunger Strikes At Guantanamo: Medical Ethics And Human Rights In A “Legal Black Hole”, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Being Human, a collection of readings assembled by President George W. Bush's Council on Bioethics, contains a powerful description of the force-feeding of Soviet political prisoner Vladimir Bukovsky, who was on a hunger strike to protest the refusal of prison authorities to provide a lawyer for a fellow inmate who was awaiting trial:

They started feeding me forcibly through the nostril. By a rather thick rubber tube with a metal end on it. . . . The procedure will be that four or five KGB guys will come to my cell, take me to a medical unit, put a straitjacket …

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Consolidating Pharmaceutical Regulation Down Under: Policy Options And Practical Realities, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Pharmaceutical regulatory agencies struggle worldwide to maintain public trust these days. Drug safety issues proliferate,' the costs of lharmaceuticals take increasingly larger shares of most countries' health service spending, and conflicts of interest afflicting the drug approval and marketing processes capture more and more public attention. The Australian and New Zealand governments are keenly aware of these problems, and have been attempting to forge a regulatory alliance to combine their respective pharmaceutical regulatory agencies, Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and New Zealand's Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority (Medsafe), into the pending Trans Tasman Therapeutic Products Authority (ANZTPA, or TPA). …

Bioterror And “Bioart”: A Plague O' Both Your Houses, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Since September 11, 2001, the threat of bioterrorism has caused Congress and the President to dramatically increase research funding for countermeasures, including funding for new biosecurity laboratories. The new kind of war against non-state actors who use terror to intimidate populations has also made the creation of new ethical and legal rules for researchers seem critical. New laws have been passed, and there have been proposals for new codes of ethics for bioterrorism-related research. Almost five years after September 11, however, the outcome of the development of new research rules remains uncertain.

Intelligent Judging: Evolution In The Classroom And The Courtroom, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Religious arguments have permeated debates on the role of the law in medical practice at the beginning and the end of life. But nowhere has religion played so prominent a role as in the century-old quest to banish or marginalize the teaching of evolution in science classes. Nor has new genetics research that supports evolutionary theory at the molecular level dampened antievolution sentiment. Requiring public-school science teachers to teach specific religion-based alternatives to Darwin's theory of evolution is just as bad, in the words of political comedian Bill Maher, as requiring obstetricians to teach medical students the alternative theory that …

Congress, Controlled Substances, And Physician-Assisted Suicide: Elephants In Mouseholes, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Gonzales v. Oregon to reject the U.S. attorney general's authority to prohibit physicians in Oregon from prescribing Schedule II drugs for their terminally ill patients to commit suicide can seem paradoxical and confusing. How is it that California cannot permit the patients of physicians who recommend marijuana, a Schedule I drug, to possess legally and use marijuana that they may need to survive, but Oregon can legally permit physicians to prescribe Schedule II drugs and patients to possess and use such drugs to end their lives?

Dna Testing, Banking, And Genetic Privacy, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

"Who am I?” has always been a fundamental philosophical question that may require decades of reflection to answer. With the advent of DNA analysis, there is a growing public impression that the answer may be found in our genes. Various Internet sites offer descriptions of our ancestral history on the basis of our DNA, as well as testing for specific “disease genes” or general profiles that are used to recommend lifestyle changes, such as foods to be eaten or avoided. Researchers have even suggested that although the scientific evidence is speculative and at best probabilistic, many people will want to …

The Patient's Right To Safety: Improving The Quality Of Care Through Litigation Against Hospitals, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

It is the consensus of experts in the patient-safety field that little has changed to improve the safety of hospital care since the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report, To Err Is Human. The report noted that in order to be successful, “safety must be an explicit organizational goal that is demonstrated by clear organizational leadership. . . . This process begins when boards of directors demonstrate their commitment to this objective by regular, close oversight of the safety of the institutions they shepherd.” Leape and Berwick agree, noting that safety cannot become an institutional priority “without more sustained and …

Foreword: Globe-Hopping Pharmaceuticals, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

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Fair Followers: Expanding Access To Generic Pharmaceuticals For Low- And Medium-Income Populations, Kevin Outterson

Faculty Scholarship

U.S. trade offi cials frequently employ the rhetoric of free riding and piracy when discussing intellectual property (IP) rights for medicines (Drahos with Braithwaite 2002; Benson 2005). The gentler term free rider is applied when developed country governments (OECD) use monopsony power to negotiate price discounts on patented pharmaceuticals (Outterson 2004, 2005b; U.S. Department of Commerce 2004; PhRMA 2005). Poorer governments usually lack suffi cient market power as a purchaser to negotiate discounts for their low- and middle-income populations. In these cases, governments and patients may resort to unlicensed generic drugs and compulsory licensing. In response, U.S. trade offi cials …