The Journal of law, medicine & ethics : a journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics
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The growing use of interoperable electronic health records is likely to have significant effects on the physician-patient relationship. This relationship involves two-way trust: of the physician in patients, and of the patients in their providers. Interoperable records opens up this relationship to further view, with consequences that may both enhance and undermine trust. ⋯ On the other hand, patients may learn from the increased oversight made possible by electronic records that their trust in their physicians is - or is not - warranted. Release of information through new methods of surveillance may also undermine patient trust. The article concludes that because trust is fragile, attention to transparency and confidentiality in the use of interoperable electronic records is essential.
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The role of physicians in death penalty cases has provoked discussion in both the legal system as well as in professional organizations. Professional groups have responded by developing ethical guidelines advising physicians as to current ethical standards. Psychiatric dilemmas as a subspecialty with unique roles have required more specific guidelines. A clinical vignette provides a focus to explicate the conflicts.
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The article comprises a conceptual framework to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a global health convention. The analyses are inspired by Lawrence Gostin's suggested Framework Convention on Global Health. ⋯ We conclude that a global health convention could be an appropriate instrument to deal with some of the problems of global health. We also show that some of the tasks preceding a convention approach might be to muster international support for supra-national health regulations, negotiate compromises between existing stakeholders in the global health arena, and to utilize WHO as a platform for further discussions on a global health convention.
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The evidence reveals that young children are targeted by food and beverage advertisers but are unable to comprehend the commercial context and persuasive intent of marketing. Although the First Amendment protects commercial speech, it does not protect deceptive and misleading speech for profit. ⋯ For the first time since the Federal Trade Commission's original attempt to regulate marketing to children in the 1970s (termed KidVid), the political, scientific, and legal climate coalesce to make the time well-suited to reevaluate the FTC's authority for action. This paper analyzes the constitutional authority for the FTC to regulate television food marketing directed at children as deceptive in light of the most robust public health evidence on the subject.