Adolescents and mental disorder: who consents to treatment?

Although English law recognises that developing adolescents may acquire the capacity to make decisions about medical treatment themselves it does not address the problem of mentally disturbed or disordered adolescents. This article examines the nature of adolescent refusal of treatment and suggests that a line be drawn between three categories of adolescent disturbance--the competent young person who refuses treatment that an adult too may refuse, the rebellious teenager whose refusal is triggered by simple teenage angst, and the mentally ill teenager whose refusal is triggered by mental illness. It suggests that adolescent autonomy needs to be more fully understood and the Mental Health Act more readily used in treating young people.     

The jurisdictional bar provision: who is an appropriate relator?

After explaining the role of the qui tam litigation and demonstrating its importance to fighting Medicare fraud and abuse, this article provides a detailed explanation of various court interpretations of the jurisdictional bar provision of the False Claims Act, a common and contentious statutory pitfall for qui tam litigators. The author provides a thorough evaluation of the law among different circuits to assist litigators in choosing favorable jurisdictions to increase their likelihood of success.     

Ownership conversions in health care organizations: who should benefit?

Because equity capital is becoming an important financing source for health care organizations, the conversion of many such organizations from nonprofit to for-profit status is a significant public policy issue. Since many states require converting nonprofits to repay the "community" for its investment during the nonprofit status period, three questions arise: (1) How much is the entity worth? (2) How much of that worth should be returned to the community? (3) In what form should it be returned? The paper addresses these questions, and demonstrates why responsible public policy calls for them to be carefully considered if community interests are to be preserved.     

Fat and the law: who should take the blame?

The incidence of obesity in both adults and children is rising at a rapid rate in most developed countries, including in Australia. Some obese people are seeking to place the blame for their condition on the fast-food industry, as demonstrated by the recent litigation in the United States brought by two obese plaintiffs against McDonald's. This litigation was unsuccessful, and on existing Australian negligence principles any similar litigation commenced here is likely to suffer the same fate. Principles of personal responsibility, autonomy and free will should prevail to deny a negligence claim. The risk of obesity and concomitant health problems from eating fast food to excess is an obvious risk which the plaintiff should not have ignored and which he or she has voluntarily assumed. It is for the Australian Government, not the courts, to regulate the behaviour of the fast-food industry. The government should take action by requiring all major fast-food chains to label their products with nutritional information, and by imposing restrictions on the advertising of food to children.     

Forensic botany: who?, how?, where?, when?

Plants are a good source of biological forensic evidence; this is due to their ubiquity, their ability to collect reference material, and their sensitivity to environmental changes. However, in many countries, botanical evidence is recognised as being scientifically. Botanical evidence is not mostly used for perpertration, instead it tends to serve as circumstantial evidence. Plant materials constitute the basis, among others, for linking a suspect or object to a crime scene or a victim, confirming or not confirming an alibi, determining the post-mortem interval, and determining the origin of food/object. Forensic botany entails field work, knowledge of plants, understanding ecosystem processes, and a basis understaning of geoscience. In this study, experiments with mammal cadavers were conducted to determine the occurence of an event. The simplest criterion characterising botanical evidence is its size. Therefore, macroremains include whole plants or their larger fragments (e.g. tree bark, leaves, seeds, prickles, and thorns), whereas microscopic evidence includes palynomorphs (spores and pollen grains), diatoms, and tissues. Botanical methods allow for an analysis to be repeated multiple times and the test material is easy to collect in the field. Forensic botany can be supplemented with molecular analyses, which, although specific and sensitive, still require validation.