Nudging, or libertarian paternalism, is presented as a new and ethically justified way of improving people's health. It has proved influential and is currently taken up by the governments in the US, the UK and France. One may question the claim that the approach is new, in any case it ...

Specification is an integral part of Tom L Beauchamp and James F Childress' principlist approach to biomedical ethics. At the same time, the authors give much space conceding to critics that the method has significant limits. Although their pointing to limitations is not unreasonable as such, the emphasis Beauchamp and ...

In Australia, young children who lack decision-making capacity can have regenerative tissue removed to treat another person suffering from a severe or life-threatening disease. While great good can potentially result from this as the recipient's life may be saved, ethical unease remains over the "use" of young children in this ...

Objectives: Values are intrinsic to the use of health technology assessments (HTAs) in health policy, but neglecting value assumptions in HTA makes their results appear more robust or normatively neutral than may be the case. Results of a 2003 survey by the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment ...

Lectureship endowment funds are created to honor major contributions that have clearly advanced a field. In some select cases they recognize the contributions of a transformational leader. Such was the case in the creation of the Wulf H. Utian Endowed Lectureship Fund. The express purpose of the fund is to ...

Summary:In the 1930s and 1940s, neurosurgeons and clinical neurologists engaged in a fierce exchange on the scope of their specialties. Neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield's rhetoric of therapeutic superiority had a strong impact both on the Rockefeller Foundation's support for his institute and on the self-fashioning of neurologists. Neurologists articulated their identity ...

The aim of this article is to describe the circumcision procedure during history, its therapeutic and preventive goals, with focus on bioethical, economic and law issues. The origins of this practice are lost in antiquity. It was performed since 3000 BC by the Egyptians for hygienic and religious reasons. Moreover, ...

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive neurostimulatory and neuromodulatory technique increasingly used in clinical and research practices around the world. Historically, the ethical considerations guiding the therapeutic practice of TMS were largely concerned with aspects of subject safety in clinical trials. While safety remains of paramount importance, the recent ...

Twenty-seven states have youth-specific helmet laws even though such laws have been shown to decrease helmet use and increase youth mortality compared with all-age (universal) laws. Our goal was to quantify the impact of age-specific helmet laws on youth under age 20 hospitalized with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Our cross-sectional ...

To describe the approval process and implementation of the 100% smokefree law in Mexico City and a competing federal law between 2007 and 2010. Reviewed smokefree legislation, published newspaper articles and interviewed key informants. Strong efforts by tobacco control advocacy groups and key policymakers in Mexico City in 2008 prompted ...

Authors examining the developing dispute resolution alternatives to the adversarial system have identified nine converging "vectors" or alternatives in what has been termed the Comprehensive Law Movement. These authors have sought to understand how the developing vectors can remain separate and vibrant movements while sharing common ground. Some analyze these ...

Since the creation of the first national DNA database in Europe in 1995, many European countries have legislated laws for initiating and regulating their own databases. The Greek government legislated a law in 2008, by which the National DNA Database of Greece was founded and regulated. According to this law, ...

Health professionals worry that information about adverse events conveyed to patients in open disclosure (OD) may be used against them in medicolegal proceedings. Whether and how strongly state and federal laws in Australia protect against such uses is unclear. Our analysis concludes that existing laws do not prohibit the sharing ...

Road traffic injuries are a leading cause of death and disability in Viet Nam. In 2008, official data reported 11 243 deaths and 7771 serious injuries on the roads, of which an estimated 60% of fatalities occur in motorcycle riders and passengers. In recognition of this problem, Viet Nam has had ...

In the absence of other data, military Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) precepts are increasingly being adapted to law enforcement needs. The purpose of this study is to better describe the nature of potentially preventable law enforcement Line-of-Duty Deaths (LODDs) occurring as a result of felonious assaults. A retrospective analysis ...

The trend in state motorcycle helmet laws has been a reduction from universal coverage requiring all riders to wear helmets, to partial coverage requiring only younger riders to wear helmets. In the current study we evaluate whether partial helmet laws reduce motorcycle fatalities and increase helmet compliance among young riders. ...

The very first law on animal experimentation has been approved recently in Brazil, and now is part of a set of the legal instruments that profile the Brazilian government's attitude toward the use of animals in experiments. Law 11794/08 establishes a new legal instrument that will guide new methods of ...

The second conference of the European Association of Health Law took place in the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh, Scotland on 15-16 October 2009. The event was generously sponsored by the British Academy and the AHRC/SCRIPT research centre based in the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh. ...

Maine upgraded its seat belt law to primary enforcement on September 20, 2007. Belt observations during the day and night were conducted along with awareness surveys in state licensing offices. Both daytime and nighttime observed belt use increased in the months following implementation of the law (daytime 77-84%; night 69-81%). ...

As one of its aspects, the process of European integration has an influence on the legal orders of the Member States, which is often referred to in the literature as the europeization of law. Upon Poland's accession to the structures of the European Union, there have also been radical changes ...

This paper will examine some of the logical consequences of laws and policymaking as they relate to acoustics. In acoustics and noise control, "public policy" is used to try to legislate good behavior. Those who behave well do not need the laws. Those who do not will not obey the ...

Tort law is an important tool in enforcing a minimal level of good behavior. But what is appropriate for law is not necessarily appropriate for ethics or for norms of professional practice.

In this paper, we review recent neuroimaging investigations of disorders of consciousness and different disciplines' understanding of consciousness itself. We consider potential tests of consciousness, their legal significance, and how they map onto broader themes in U.S. statutory law pertaining to advance directives and surrogate decision-making. In the process, we ...

In Pakistan, the self-serving use of Islam by more secular elements alongside politico-religious ones facilitated the latter's increasing influence and the conflation and intricate interweaving of Islam and Pakistani nationhood. A paradigm shift under Zia's martial law revamped society as much as state laws, producing both religiously defined militias and ...

Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly recognizes the importance of the child's voice in judicial proceedings that affect him or her. Nowhere is the child's voice more important than in delinquency proceedings where decisions will be made about the child's liberty, rehabilitative ...

In June of 2003 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania passed S. 259 which repealed the state's 35-year old motorcycle helmet safety law. Motorcycle helmets are now only required for riders who are under the age of 21 and for those who are 21 years or older who have had a motorcycle ...

Parents are influential over mate choice, and in most human societies they choose spouses for their offspring according to their own preferences. However, surprising little is known about the qualities which make a woman desirable as a daughter-in-law and a man desirable as a son-in-law. Using evidence from 67 societies ...

To describe the process of approval and implementation of a comprehensive smoke-free law in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, between 2005 and 2009. Review of the Santa Fe smoke-free legislation, articles published in local newspapers and documentation on two lawsuits filed against the law, and interviews with key individuals ...

In the United States, interest in bioethics increased significantly during the 1970s, as new technologies and changing social mores combined to focus attention on contentious issues in medical research and treatment. New legal developments, both statutory and case based, also began to address reproductive freedom, informed consent to research and ...

As of 2008, surrogacy is legal and openly practised in various places; Japan, however, has no regulations or laws regarding surrogacy. This paper reports the situation of surrogacy in Japan and in five other regions (the USA, the UK, Taiwan, Korea and France) to clarify the pros and cons of ...

Fitts's Law for the timing of targeted movements states that, when target width is held constant, movement time (MT) will increase as the travelled distance increases. Even imagined movements, mentally simulated actions without actual actions, obey Fitts's Law. Recently, a violation of Fitts's Law has been reported; when targets occur ...

The Italian law regulating assisted reproductive technologies that came into force in 2004 restricts the number of fertilized oocytes per cycle to three, obliges the subsequent transfer of all resulting embryos and prohibits the freezing of surplus embryos. This study evaluates the impact of the law on severe oligozoospermic, cryptozoospermic, ...

Calls for a change in the law to allow strictly controlled forms of assisted dying in the UK continue following a recent attempt to change the law and an announcement by the Royal College of Nursing that it was shifting its position on the issue from opposition to a neutral ...

In California, teasing apart state and federal breach notification laws highlights the challenges organizations everywhere face in determining their responsibilities under ARRA's new privacy regulations.

Even though people in our contemporary technological society are depending on communication, our understanding of the underlying laws of human communicational behavior continues to be poorly understood. Here we investigate the communication patterns in 2 social Internet communities in search of statistical laws in human interaction activity. This research reveals ...

Human societies have formalized instincts for compliance with reciprocal altruism in laws that sanction some aggression and not other aggression. Neuroscience makes steady advances toward measurements of various aspects of brain function pertinent to the aggressive behaviors that laws are designed to regulate. Consciousness, free will, rationality, intent, reality testing, ...

In the past 3 years, three landmark laws relating to bioethics have been passed in the Israeli parliament. These are the Terminally Ill Patient Law (in 2005) and the Organ Donation Law and the Brain Death/Respiratory Law (in 2008). To reach consensus on these difficult issues in a multicultural society ...

Criminals illegally obtaining firearms represent a great risk to many urban residents. This cross-sectional study of 54 US cities uses data on state laws governing gun sales, a survey of law enforcement agencies' practices to promote compliance with gun sales laws, and crime gun trace data to examine associations between ...

A number of jurisdictions, including in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India and Hong Kong, have recently canvassed reform of vexatious litigant laws which in prescribed circumstances restrict access to the litigation system. The most recent contribution to law reform on the subject is the 2008 report of the Law ...

This study examined support for clean indoor air (CIA) laws among 2044 young adults in Minnesota during 2006 and 2007. Two-thirds of young adult participants supported restaurant CIA laws and 40% supported bar/club CIA laws. A higher proportion of young adults living with CIA laws supported the laws compared with ...

INTRODUCTION: In recent years, the use of artificial tanning devices has become very popular in Chile. In April, 2007, a new law was established to regulate the non-medical use of tanning beds and tanning booths. The aim of this study was to evaluate the level and quality of information provided ...

INTRODUCTION: Smoke-free air laws have been implemented in many Kentucky communities to protect the public from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke exposure. The impact of different strengths of smoke-free air laws on indoor air quality was assessed. METHODS: Indoor air quality in hospitality venues was assessed in seven communities ...

Theorems, proofs, laws and rules are commonly named according to the presumed investigator, but often earlier investigators have contributed substantially to the findings. One example of this is Hellin's law, which was named after Hellin, although he was not the first to discover it. In research on twinning and higher ...

Fetal homicide laws criminalize killing a fetus largely to the same extent as killing any other human being. Historically, the common law did not generally recognize feticide as a crime, but this was because of the evidentiary "born-alive" rule, not because of the substantive understanding of the term "human being." ...

PROBLEM: Motor-vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States. In the event of a crash, seat belts are highly effective in preventing serious injury and death. METHODS: Data from the 2006 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System were used to calculate prevalence of seat belt use by ...

This paper is directed to scientists and engineers who wish to learn more about careers in patent law. It presents an overview of the patent process along with a description of the various roles of individuals and institutions involved. Finally, the paper briefly discusses a few of the more controversial ...

ISSUE: On August 1, 2007, the Law on the Quality and Safety of Human Tissues and Cells came into force. IMPLICATIONS: As a consequence of the new legislation on human tissue, legislative changes were effected upon the Law Regulating Transplantations, Medicine Law and Transfusion Law and the regulation of pharmacies ...

PROBLEM: Enforced primary seatbelt laws can reduce morbidity and mortality associated with motor-vehicle crashes. Constituent support is an important factor associated with legislator voting behavior toward injury prevention laws. Little is known about attitudes toward a primary seat belt law among adults in rural states without a primary seat belt ...

Lex Salica was made at the end of the 5th century and it governed the Salian Franks. In those times, there were other so-called leges barbarorum, which together formed (as well as Lex Salica) important source of early feudal law in Western Europe. Lex Salica included common law of the ...

Between 1997 and 2005, the number of annual motorcyclist fatalities doubled. Motorcyclist fatalities now account for over 10 percent of all traffic-related fatalities. However, over the last three decades, states have generally been eliminating laws that require helmet use among all motorcyclists. This study examines the effectiveness of helmet use ...