Health Law

In a previous post of October 25, I reported about the Markingson case and a letter we wrote with 6 health law, bioethics and medical scholars to the University of Minnesota Senate, which was co-signed by 175 colleagues from various North-American and international institutions. We requested that the university set up an Independent Committee of Inquiry into the death of Dan Markingson, a psychiatric patient who committed suicide while enrolled in a clinical trial at the University’s Fairview Hospital.  The case raises, as discussed in the previous post, serious concerns about the protection of very vulnerable patients in psychiatric industry-sponsored clinical trials.

Several things happened since this October 25 posting. There are positive developments, including a Senate vote in favour of an Independent Inquiry, but also concerns about what will happen next, which has motivated us to write last week a follow-up letter to the Senate.  

The Senate's Vote for an Independent Inquiry

[with update Nov. 25, 2013 at the end of the blog]

With colleagues Raymond De Vries (University of Michigan), Alice Dreger (Northwestern University), Lois Shepherd (University of Vriginia), Susan M. Reverby (Wellesley College) and Jerome P. Kassirer (Tufts University), I wrote a letter to the Chair, Vice-Chair and members of the University of Minnesota Senate, to request that the University of Minnesota set up an inquiry to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Dan Markingson in a clinical trial at the University of Minnesota Fairview Hospital. More than 170 leading academic colleagues specialized in health law and human rights, research ethics, bioethics, and medical research joined as signatories to the letter.

Prof. Colleen Flood and LLM student Catherine Deans consider the impacts of what the Supreme Court avoided in the Rasouli decision.

Cross-posted from the Impact Ethics blog.

The Supreme Court of Canada has now released its judgment in the Rasouli proceedings with striking differences between the majority and minority decisions. Mr Rasouli was diagnosed as being in a permanent vegetative state and his treating physicians, believing he had no further prospect of recovery, wished to withdraw life support. The applicability of Ontario’s Health Care Consent Act was at the heart of the Supreme Court decision and, more specifically, whether the withdrawal of life support was “treatment” requiring the consent of Mr. Rasouli’s wife (who opposed withdrawal). The challenge for the Court was to strike a balance between clinical autonomy and patient autonomy and, through this, show respect for the beliefs and values of Mr. Rasouli and his family.