Search

Reports global developments related to medicine as of November 1994. Compensation for patients contracted with hepatitis C from contaminated blood in Great Britain; Investigations on HIV infections in Germany; Approval of assisted suicide measure by voters in Oregon.

The United States Supreme court upheld Oregon's 1997 Death with Dignity Act in a 6-3 decision. Dissenters, chief justice John Roberts and judges Anthony Scalia and Clarence Thomas, voted against physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill people. Background is provided on the Gonzales versus Oregon case and the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

Reports that an appeal court upheld Oregon's assisted suicide law for mentally competent, terminally ill patients. Statement that the United States attorney general John Ashcroft cannot sanction or hold doctors criminally liable for prescribing but not administering overdoses under the Death With Dignity Act; Ruling that the attorney general may not exercise control over an area of law traditionally reserved for state authority, such as medical care.

Reports on a disciplinary plan by the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners for a doctor who undertreated pain between 1993 and 1998. Details on the disciplinary action imposed on Paul Bilder, a pulmonary diseases specialist; Opinion on the disciplinary plan of the board.