Intimate partner violence and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in women: what we know and need to know

This article presents a review of knowledge regarding post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women experiencing intimate partner violence. Knowledge related to the prevalence and predictors of PTSD in battered women, the association between PTSD and physical health, and the emerging science regarding PTSD and physiological and immune parameters is addressed. Primary recommendations for future research includes the need for longitudinal and intervention research that incorporates a range of psychosocial and physiologic health outcomes.     

What litigators need to know about HIPAA

HIPAA's Privacy Regulations impose a number of new requirements on Covered Entities concerning disclosure of an individual's personal health information. This Article briefly outlines the primary function of HIPAA's general nondisclosure rule and discusses the exceptions under which HIPAA permits disclosure in the course of litigation or government investigations.     

The need to know versus the right to know: privacy of patient medical data in an information-based society

"Whatever, in connection with my professional practice, or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret."(1) "Safeguards to privacy in individual health care information are imperative to preserve the health care delivery relationship and the integrity of the patient record."(2) As early as the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., Hippocrates contemplated the importance of medical information to the care and treatment of patients. His oath suggests that privacy of a patient's medical information creates the foundation upon which a patient reposes trust in his or her physician. While defining the earliest version of the physician-patient privilege, the oath does not envision the extent of modern day access to healthcare information. A patient's relationship with the modern healthcare delivery system often includes a team of physicians, nurses, and other clinical support personnel. This relationship extends beyond direct caregivers and may include healthcare administrators, payor organizations, and persons unfamiliar with a patient's identity, such as researchers and public health officials. Accessing a patient's medical information links these participants to the patient's healthcare delivery relationship. The Hippocratic Oath does not contemplate such broad access, nor does it contemplate the emerging privacy crisis resulting from the application of computer technology to medical record storage and retrieval. The combination of broad access, individual privacy rights, and computer technology requires a rethinking of measures designed to protect the realities of the modern medical information society.     

What we know and what we still need to learn

Research has changed the conceptualization of the causes and consequences of violence. Yet some questions remain unanswered. Infants and young children have largely been overlooked, and intraethnic and cultural group variations have not been addressed. There is still a need to address macro-level systematic discrimination in the health care system along with the intrapersonal physiological changes that result from exposure to violence. Fortunately, studies are beginning to show how longitudinal and intervention research can be safely conducted.     

论消费者知情权的实现

本文从阐述消费者知情权实现的主要途径入手,分析了该权利实现过程中的多种障碍,进而提出保护权利的各种对策和建议,以期通过制度的改进最大限度地保障消费者知情权的实现。     

行政知情权的必要性及其价值的法理解析

行政知情权作为其他公民权利的前提性权利,是人民主权、控权理念与制度的内在逻辑,也是当今信息社会保障信息自由进而实现权力与权利均衡的必然要求。明确行政知情权的必要性与价值,加快相关立法,对于推进我国的民主、法治和宪政进程具有重大意义。     

关于股东知情权及司法救济——从一起案例说起

股东权利的维护是现代企业制度的重点内容。股东知情权是股东权力体系申其他权利的基础和前提，也是保障股东对公司业务监督纠正权得以有效行使的必要前提和手段。中国《公司法》第34条第一款明确规定：“股东有权查阅复制公司章程、股东会议记录、董事会会议决议、监事会会议决议和财务会计报告。”在法律实践申如何有效维护股东知情权，以及当股东知情权受到侵害时如何进行司法救济，使股东知情权制度真正实现其法律价值，是本文重点讨论的问题。     

The rights of donor inseminated children to know their genetic origins in Australia

Twenty years after it was recognised that adopted children have rights to understand their origins, the dawn has finally broken with respect to children conceived as a result of the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART), specifically donor insemination (DI). Recipients and practitioners of conception technologies focus their energies and ethical deliberation on the achievement of pregnancy and the successful birth of the child. Law, in contrast, must focus beyond birth to enshrine respect for the rights of the child, who is 'not legally capable of defending [his or her] own future interests.' This article undertakes an assessment of what is in the best interests of a child using empirical studies to ground a position that should be adopted by law in Australia. This article also critically evaluates the current legal position of the various States and Territories with regards to a DI conceived child's rights to know of their form of conception; access to identifying information of their donor; at what age they may access information; the position of DI children born before existing legislation; record-keeping; and finally whether international law grants such children rights. Australian children must enjoy the right in theory and practice to know they were donor conceived and the identity of their donor. It is disappointing that New South Wales, as the most recent State to propose legislation on ART, has not utilised international empirical research on the best interests of DI children or even followed the Infertility Treatment Act 1995 (Vic) which seems to be far more progressive in recognising how best to protect the rights of DI children. The current legal position is chaotic. States and Territories should confer power on the Federal Government to legislate uniform and explicit regulation of ART for the benefit of DI children.     

The risk of birth defects: Jacobs v. Theimer and parents' right to know.

This Article discusses the Texas Supreme Court's holding in Jacobs v. Theimer that the parents of a defective child had a cause of action for damages against a physician for alleged negligent failure to inform the mother during pregnancy that she had contracted rubella and therefore might have a defective child, thereby causing her to lose the opportunity to have an abortion. The Article raises a number of questions that post-Jacobs courts probably will confront concerning the duty of physicians and genetic counselors to keep their clients informed; describes some social and medical developments--including recent progress in medical genetics and prenatal diagnosis--which are likely to make Jacobs a significant precedent; evaluates the court's decision to allow a damage suit only for the costs of treating and caring for the child's defects; and briefly addresses the question of whether the Jacobs case comes within the sphere of suits for what has come to be known as "wrongful birth" and "wrongful life."     

Abortion, information & the law: what every doctor needs to know

1. Before commencing any treatment, doctors must inform patients of all material risks of the treatment (Rogers v. Whitaker, 1992). 2. It is not up to the professional judgment of doctors to decide how much information to give to patients (Rogers v. Whitaker, 1992). 3. The same duty to inform applies to abortion ("Ellen's Case," 1998). 4. GPs and counsellors who refer for abortion also have a legal duty to inform women of risks, because everyone who gives specialized or professional advice may be sued for negligence if that advice is given without due care (Evatt's Care, 1969). 5. Doctors have been inadequately informed on the medical risks of abortion, by writers seeking to present abortion as a risk-free procedure. 6. Abortion may increase the risk of cancer. 7. Abortion carries risks of injury and illness. 8. Abortion caries risks of future reproduction. 9. Abortion may have adverse psychological and psychiatric sequelae. In some women, these sequelae are severe and intractable, and may occur irrespective of a woman's personal attitudes towards abortion (Melinda Tankard Reist, Giving Sorrow Words: Women's Stories of Grief After Abortion, Sydney, Duffy & Snellgrove, 2000). 10. Women still die in Australia from abortion. 11. It has not been proved that pregnancy and delivery are more dangerous than abortion. 12. The risks of mortality and morbidity in carrying a pregnancy to term are often exaggerated, in an effort to make abortion appear safer. 13. Doctors are not required to refer for abortion. On the other hand, doctors do have a duty to inform themselves of the professional competence of any practitioner to whom they refer any patient for any procedure. Doctors who are referring for abortion can avoid legal jeopardy by informing women fully of the risks, and by keeping very comprehensive records of the information they have given. Alternatively, doctors can avoid legal liability by declining to refer for abortion. There are compelling medical reasons for treating abortion as a social, non-therapeutic, potentially harmful procedure with which conscientious doctors would choose not to involve themselves.