Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Regulation Of Radiation Hazards In The Workplace: Present Problems And New Approaches To Reproductive Health, Neal Smith, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

On December 20, 1985, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) proposed revisions to its Standards for Protection Against Radiation [hereinafter Standards].¹ If adopted, the new Standards will provide additional protection for millions of workers and their unborn children. The effects of the Standards will extend, however, far beyond the health of those exposed to radiation. Specifically, the NRC's proposal may provide a new paradigm for regulating health hazards that have no safe threshold level of exposure. It will also focus debate on whether or not women should be precluded from working in fetotoxic environments

Made In The U.S.A.: Legal And Ethical Issues In Artificial Heart Experimentation, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The death of William Schroeder in Louisville, Kentucky, on August 6, 1986, brought to a close a remarkable chapter in public human experimentation. Artificial heart implants represent the most public experiments in the history of the world. The manner in which they are conducted is a matter of utmost public and professional concern, since it graphically portrays the seriousness with which we take our laws and ethical rules regarding the protection of the rights and welfare of human subjects. Unfortunately, the brief history of artificial heart implants is neither a happy nor a proud one. Begun with high hopes and …

Charting The Future Course For Corporate Management Of Health Risks, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Corporations engage in technological activities of benefit to society, but thereby also create new health risks for workers, consumers, and communities. Government regulatory agencies deal with this chronic problem by conducting risk analyses and imposing various duties on private firms. Despite agency efforts and corporate compliance, health risks continue to arise and take their toll. To what extent will private firms voluntarily assume greater responsibility for preventing these health risks? This question is of increasing social importance, because the limitations of regulatory efforts are now obvious, whereas health risks are now being identified at what appears to be an increasing …

The Right To Know And The Duty To Disclose Hazard Information, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

In late 1983, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) promulgated its final rule on "hazard communication." This rule establishes for many workers the right to know certain health hazard information held by their employers. Concurrently, the rule imposes on these employers the duty to disclose such privately held information. ^I

The OSHA rule is limited and late, and joins a crowded field. It follows in the wake of several decades of legal developments which have established various rights to know and duties to disclose. Since the latter part of the nineteenth century, state common law for personal injuries has …

Disqualification Of An Attorney Representing Multiple Witnesses Before A Grand Jury: Legal Ethics And The Stonewall Defense, Nancy J. Moore

Faculty Scholarship

Prompted by the increasing recognition that certain economic and political conduct (such as consumer fraud, environmental pollution, and questionable campaign financing practices) has a profound effect on society, lawmakers have recently labelled as criminal "a whole range of political and business activities which, until recently, had been a more or less accepted part of American life."I Armed with both new statutes and a new aggressiveness in the enforcement of pre-existing statutes, 2 federal and state prosecutors have during the past ten years compiled an impressive record in the investigation and prosecution of white collar crime, organized crime and official corruption.3 …

Technology Assessment And Social Control, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

The emerging concepts of corporate responsibility and technology assessment are, to a considerable extent, responses to problems arising from technological developments and their applications by industry and government. These problems appear in the relatively discrete sectors of consumer protection and occupational safety and in the diffuse sectors of community quality of life and the national and international environments.

The Social Control Of Science And Technology, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Science and technology increasingly work changes in the complex matrix of society. These changes pervade our ecological systems and our physical and psychic health. Less perceptibly, they pervade our culture, our values, and our value based institutions such as the law. In turn, our values and institutions shape the progress and utilization of science and technology.

As we know, science and technology have provided society with enormous material benefits and a higher standard of living and health. But we now realize that this process has been accompanied by alarming rates of resource consumption and many new hazards to ecological systems …