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In this article the authors examine the legality of human body transplantation under the current state of medical knowledge. The article first analyzes under what conditions an experimental medical procedure may be legitimately performed under international and national law. Then it examines the legal requirements for prior ethics approval and considers the possible civil and criminal liability claims and disciplinary sanctions that may arise if such a procedure would fail. Subsequently, it applies this analysis to investigate whether body transplants would currently be legally allowed. The authors conclude that it is very unlikely that prior ethics approval would be obtained, and emphasize that physicians are likely to be found liable for medical malpractice if body transplantation is performed. If body transplantation results in the death of the patient, the physicians involved would run a considerable risk of being held criminally liable for negligent homicide. The participating physicians also risk severe disciplinary sanctions for professional misconduct, with a real possibility that they will be suspended or even banned from medical practice for life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Health Organization's determination of the Ebola virus disease outbreak as a public health event of international concern prompted nonaffected countries to implement measures to prevent, detect, and manage the introduction of the virus in their territories. The outbreak provided an opportunity to assess the operational implementation of the International Health Regulations' core capacities and health systems' preparedness to handle a potential or confirmed case of Ebola virus disease. A public health framework implemented in Latin America and Caribbean countries encompassing preparatory self-assessments, in-country visits, and follow-up suggests that the region should increase efforts to consolidate and sustain progress on core capacities and health system preparedness to face public health events with national or international repercussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments in European Union law have created rules favourable to cross-border patient movement. However, where national laws on patient rights differ, this may limit movement by creating confusion for patients and by reducing their confidence in seeking treatment abroad. This artide examines the extent to which English and French law recognize a patient right to information regarding treatment. In light of the differences between the two systems concerning both the form and the con:ent of the law, highlighted by recent developments in French law, the artide then considers whether the Patients' Rights Directive can provide a framework for coordination of national rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paneuropean development of patients' rights represent a relatively recent concern, the legislative norms of which aim at granting to patients real-time access to all sorts of medical services. To this end, the European Union implemented a unitary normative professional and juridical background: Directive 2011/24/U.E. on the rights of patients to international treatments. Consequently, the patients are free to choose themselves the suppliers of medical services which do not include hospitalization, without a previous authorisation (country, doctor and medical institution) while, in the case of long-term treatments, a principial authorisation will be necessary. In both cases, the carrier of the therapeutic service receives the payment for his actions at the level of those established at national level, the difference being usually payed by the patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In accordance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and based on the National Strategy for People with Disabilities, it is necessary to develop, in Croatia, a uniform system of expertise and uniform criteria to determine disability. For this purpose, a Uniform list of impairments anda Uniform list of functional capabilities, which was made using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) of the World Health Organisation, were structured. Conclusion of the Croatian Government determined a trial application of a Uniform list of functional capabilities, but the experts also tested the Uniform list of impairments. The test involved the experts from the seven bodies of expertise disability and included 441 persons. The results indicate that in most cases, about 80%, the proposed list of functional capabilities and impairments, cannot or can only partially be applied by the bodies of expertise that, in accordance with applicable law, determine the existence of rights based on bodily impairments. In only 4.3% of procedures performed experts believe that using the Uniform list of functional capabilities and Uniform list of impairments enables them to fully describe the condition of the person and that the instruments can be used in the expert evaluation of disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capitalizing on the hype surrounding stem cell research, numerous clinics around the world offer 'stem cell therapies' for a variety of medical conditions. Despite questions about the safety and efficacy of these interventions, anecdotal evidence suggests a relatively large number of patients are traveling to receive these unproven treatments - a practice called 'stem cell tourism.' Because these unproven treatments pose risks to individual patients and to legitimate translational stem cell research, stem cell tourism has generated substantial policy concern and inspired attempts to reduce these risks through the development of guidelines for patients and medical practitioners. This paper examines the roles and responsibilities of physicians in patients' home countries with respect to patients' decisions to try unproven stem cell therapies abroad. Specifically, it examines professional guidance from two organizations - the American Medical Association and the International Society for Stem Cell Research - and assesses physicians' professional and legal obligations to patients considering unproven stem cell therapies. Then, drawing on qualitative interviews conducted with patients who traveled abroad for unproven stem cell treatments, it explores the roles that physicians actually play in patients' decisions and compares these actual roles with their professional and legal responsibilities. The paper concludes with a discussion of strategies to help improve the guidance physicians provide to patients considering unproven treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an examination of reactions by practitioners of ayurvedic medicine to India's new WTO-mandated Patents Act, this article problematizes approaches to agency, resistance, and the intelligibility of systems of power in social theory. The coming together of law, science, and different practices of medicine in this case is challenging to decipher in terms of its potential effects on India's ayurvedic medical system, and ayurvedic medical practitioners have very divergent positions about how to protect their knowledge from misappropriation-ranging from organized resistance to deliberate inaction-and disagree over whether the new laws present a threat. I present theoretical approaches, largely from science and technology studies, that decenter the role of human agency and consider inaction an informed reaction to power in an effort to begin to focus more fully on problems of agency and intelligibility that social analysts have only peripherally acknowledged in their considerations of power and resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the use of the Groningen protocol over the treatment of terminally-ill infants in the U.S., England, and the Netherlands. Noted was that the Groningen protocol was established with a help of a local prosecutor after the prosecution of physicians that have euthanized infants in 2004. It refers to the cases, Kadijk and Pearson, which have illustrated the application of the Groningen protocol based on the comparisons over the treatment of terminally-ill infants.

This paper considers whether it is possible to classify physician assisted suicide (PAS) as a 'service' for the purposes of Article 49 of the European Community Treaty. it suggests that if PAS were to be formally recognised as a 'service' for the purposes of European Community (EC) law, it is unlikely that the UK Government would be able to deny terminally ill Britons from exercising their rights as EU Citizens to obtain PAS in the more permissive jurisdictions of Member States. This paper will demonstrate that the provision of PAS in a Member State by a Dignitas-type organisation could easily fulfil the requirements of Article 49 and be recognised as a service under Community Law. Owing to the considerable rights that the classification of PAS as a 'service' under EC Law would afford terminally ill individuals, the paper will examine the case law of the European Court of Justice relating to the free movement of services. This jurisprudential analysis will contend that it is unlikely that a Member State could invoke any of the agreed exceptions to Article 49 as a method of restricting the availability of PAS as a service within its jurisdiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the scope of hospital pharmacy practice regarding preparation and distribution of medicinal drugs. It reveals the results of the survey conducted by the Global Survey of Hospital Pharmacy Practices on the differences of the pharmacy systems among countries. A discussion regarding the five primary tasks in the distribution and preparation of medicines which includes accuracy and efficiency in medication, and verification of proper storage is also presented.

The emergence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has added to the tension between patients' private interests and public health interests regarding medical confidentiality. Many people become infected with HIV because they are unaware of the positive serostatus of their sexual partners. Informing or warning the sexual partners of HIV-positive patients of the patients'serostatus could assist in curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS because sexual partners can thereby choose to avoid having unprotected sex with infected persons. By law, however, doctors have a duty to their patients to protect their medical confidentiality. Doctors, therefore, face a dilemma concerning which should prevail: patients' right to privacy and confidentiality or the importance to society of controlling the spread of the pandemic. Most medical regulatory bodies do not take clear-cut positions on the issue, leaving the decision to the discretion of individual doctors. The question of whether doctors should be legally empowered to breach the confidence of patients to protect the patients' sexual partners is discussed here with reference to the existing laws of Canada, the United States, and Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes international law claims in human subject litigation, arguing that the failure of federal courts or Congress to oversee this kind of litigation by providing or recognizing a federal cause of action for research torts is an injustice. It is about two distinct and somewhat arcane areas of the law, international law and the law of human subjects research. Because they draw on different historical, social and conceptual frameworks, each has its own descriptive section in the article. In the first section, the author briefly describes international law and its place in the U.S. constitutional order. This section explains why international law claims are routinely rejected by the courts. In the second section, the author discusses the moral underpinnings of the research enterprise and explains how the values of science contradict the values of human rights and medicine. The author concludes that Congress or the judiciary should recognize the social magnitude of the research enterprise, the difference between the values of science and the values of medicine, and the meaninglessness of individual informed consent when considered on a population level. Citizens should be provided with a clearly defined cause of action for research harms to human subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the regulation of biomedical research in Africa. According to the author, regulations that guide biomedical research on the role of local research ethics committees, procedures of informed consent, and compensation for injuries would be beneficial. The article also discusses international ethical codes such as the Declaration of Helsinki and the medical trials of trovafloxacin mesylate in Nigeria.

The paper deals with the need to make the Declaration more precise, as well as the search for mechanisms that would allow the practical application of the ethical wealth contained therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Se presentan varios documentos sobre ética médica referenciados en este número incluyendo el "Código de Nuremberg," la "Declaración de Helsinki, 1964," y la "Declaración de Helsinki, 1975."

From an ethical perspective, the paper analyses the categorial evolution of the Helsinki Declaration, taking into account all of its versions, from 1964 to 2002. The goal is to show and assess its ethical-categorial evolution and establish some of its possible consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing public health crisis associated with injection drug use highlights the failure of prohibitionist policies. In contrast, harm reduction approaches aim to protect and promote the health of drug users. Supervised injection facilities (SIFs) are one important component of this approach. This article considers the international legal implications of establishing SIFs. It argues that implementing trials of SIFs is an appropriate measure that states should take pursuant to their international legal obligations to realize progressively the right of their nationals to the highest attainable standard of health. It argues that international drug control treaties do not prevent such measures, as is commonly claimed. The authors conclude that successful trials in Europe and Australia should be emulated elsewhere, in accordance with states' international obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Ultrasound imaging is a major technological advance in the practice of regional anesthesia. For the social security, their rationale relies on the concept of a global medical act i.e., each medical act is worked out, in order to describe the realized medical act totally. At present the social security uses this concept to prevent the anesthetists from quoting a supplementary ultrasound act. In this article we discuss the legitimacy of quoting ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addresses the issue over the licensure of international medical graduates. Examples of the differences among the laws and rules governing the practice of medicine; Link between the rules for endorsing licenses and granting initial licensure; Practices that international medical graduates object to.

The article discusses the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in monitoring disease outbreaks and the role revised International Health Regulations will play in this respect from June 2007. Advanced technology and electronic media can play an important role in detecting pandemic influenza and other infectious diseases at early stage. The WHO is using a computer software developed in Canada to search several news related to outbreak of diseases anywhere in the world. The software has been proved effective in monitoring and controlling diseases. Under the new revised International Health Regulations, governments will be communicating themselves to report outbreaks of certain diseases and other potential global health threats. INSET: Technology plays vital role in detecting disease outbreaks.

The author suggests that physicians testifying in child abuse cases require protection under laws on reporting of child abuse of the kind found in the U.S. rather than those in Great Britain. The editorial discusses the article "Royal college rewrites child protection history," by Jonathan Gornall, found in the current issue of the "British Medical Journal."

The article presents information on the Good Regulatory Practices (GRP), a quality system developed by the European Union (EU) authorities for medicinal products. With the EU enlargement in 2004, there was a need to prepare the candidate countries so that legislation and practices related to medicinal products would be equivalent in all member states and in the European Economic Area countries. For that purpose, the Pan-European Regulatory Forum (PERF) was created, which went through several stages of development between 1999 and 2004. By the end of PERF I, the GRP was developed during PERF II. The GRP is designed to ensure that the users of medicinal products, the applicants and the regulators are satisfied with the scientific advice, opinions, the establishment of Maximum Residue Levels, inspection and assessment reports and related documents, taking into consideration legal requirements and guidance in order to protect and promote human and animal health.

Reports the case concerning consent to medical treatment. Rejection of American and Canadian developments in the law of informed consent; Approval of medical standard by the British; Details on the English law on consent for treatment.

The authors reflects on foreign policies implemented for global public health through the Foreign Policy and Global Health (FPGH) initiative. It seeks to promote foreign policies that account for public health concerns. The authors believe that there is a need to move towards a more sustainable relationship between foreign policy and health requiring strategic policy analysis and research. They suggest that global health in foreign policy provides security on consequences of health crisis.

This article discusses the growing number of U.S. medical students enrolling in offshore Caribbean medical schools. These schools offer students the chance to become doctors after 16 months of study. However, there are major concerns that these schools do not conduct research, have inadequate facilities, and are not monitored by their respective governments. There is the fear that a lack of proper accreditation among these off-shore schools will eventually lead to a drop in medical care standards in the U.S. The growing need for medical personal and the growing enrollment in these offshore programs have lead some programs to develop standards of accreditation comparable with other international medical schools.

States that the Israeli occupation of Gaza and West Bank has damaged civilian health, according to the Médecins du Monde. View of the charity that Israel is not protecting the population in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention; The issue of evacuating and treating sick and wounded people; Allegation that Israeli soldiers are targeting medical personnel; Report that the Nasser Hospital at Khan Younis in Gaza Strip was "attacked" 15 times since the second Intifada began in September 2000; The restriction on travel; Comment from the Israeli Foreign Ministry about searching ambulances.

Presents the author's experience as a medical volunteer for the Palestine Red Crescent Society in the Occupied Territories of Israel. Details of how he was held by police at the airport because he was denied entry due to security reasons; Opinion that the Israeli policy of denying humanitarian aid workers access to the Palestinian population is a breach of international humanitarian law.

Discusses the duties of physicians in times of war. Address by Dr. Jacques Stroun on medical duties of doctors in times of war during a conference organized by Physicians for Human Rights; Codification of the principle into the First and Third Geneva Conventions; Provision under the Second and Third Geneva Conventions that doctors and medical personnel can not be taken prisoner; Groups of doctors providing care in a prisoner-of-war camp.