PROPOSED MEDICAE LEGISLATION.

Proposed federal legislation jeopardizes patient privacy.

In the last year there has been a move to enact federal legislation concerning private health-care information. This move has been fueled by a growing trend toward the computerization and electronic transmission of health-care information. These advances in technology call for appropriate new protections of patients' privacy. Unfortunately, the proposed legislation has not received adequate ...

Proposed legislation supports an untested publishing model

Free access to information is a powerful and alluring concept. Under the “Public Access to Science Act,” recently introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives by Representative Martin O. Sabo (Democrat, Minnesota), papers describing scientific research substantially funded by the U.S. Government would be excluded from copyright protection. This is proposed as a means to guarantee free acce...

Sweeping "new" proposed consumer product safety legislation.

On January 29, 2009, the federal government again proposed the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (CCPSA), this time as Bill C-6. The CCPSA was first proposed by the Harper government in April 2008, following several high profile recalls and concerns about the health and safety risks of consumer products imported and/or sold in Canada. Bill C-52, as it was known then, died when the Canadian fed...

Last resort: the threat of federal steroid legislation--is the proposed legislation constitutional?

Queensland's proposed surrogacy legislation: an opportunity for national reform.

Surrogacy has existed since Biblical times when Hagar, the maidservant of the infertile Sarah, acted as a surrogate to bear Sarah and her husband, Abraham, a son. Despite the longevity of the practice of surrogacy, modern society has been reluctant to embrace surrogacy arrangements due to the ethical and sometimes practical debates they spark. This reluctance is evidenced by the general lack of...