Tax Court allows tax credit for herbs and vitamins, not for massage

In August 2001, the Tax Court of Canada issued its most recent judgment on the tax deductability of expenses for complementary/alternative therapies. The decision in Pagnotta v Canada is significant for people with HIV/AIDS who use such therapies. It also illustrates how provincial and federal laws regulating health-care practitioners and natural health products have a financial impact on the cost of accessing treatment.     

Post-mortem human reproduction: legal and other regulatory issues

Increasingly women are seeking to establish pregnancies using sperm retrieved from their dead or dying partners. This raises a number of issues of a broad nature, but is also of significance in terms of the relationship between regulatory mechanisms and private choices. This article reviews this relationship with specific reference to the United Kingdom position, but also taking account of case law and regulation in Australia, particularly in the State of Victoria.     

Report on complementary/alternative health care and HIV/AIDS

In 2001, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network published a lengthy report on Complementary/Alternative Health Care and HIV/AIDS: Legal, Ethical & Policy Issues in Regulation. The document is the first in a series of papers to be produced by the Legal Network on priority legal and ethical issues related to HIV/AIDS care, treatment, and support. The article below summarizes the contents of the report.     

WTO ministerial conference adopts declaration on TRIPS and public health

In November 2001, the 4th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization adopted a Ministerial Declaration on public health and the WTO's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the "TRIPS Agreement"). The declaration represents a modest advance in addressing concerns that strict patent laws, and threats of trade sanctions, will be a barrier to most of the world's people with HIV/AIDS accessing affordable medicines. The full significance of the declaration remains to be seen, as it depends on what political impact it has at the WTO and on its member countries, and what legal impact it will have in the interpretation of the TRIPS Agreement.     

WTO: US and Argentina settle dispute over patents and data protection

In May 2000, supplementing an earlier complaint filed in May 1999, the US filed a complaint against Argentina, alleging that its patent laws violate the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (the TRIPS Agreement). The gist of the US complaint was that Argentina's law failed to provide: (1) adequate protection against "unfair" commercial use of undisclosed test data submitted in order to get market approval of pharmaceutical products; (2) certain safeguards for compulsory licences on an invention granted on the basis of inadequate working by the patent holder; and (3) adequate measures to prevent infringements of patent rights. The US also alleged that Argentina denies certain exclusive rights of patent holders, such as the exclusive right to import the patented product into the country. At the end of May 2002, the US and Argentina notified the WTO that they had reached a "mutually agreed solution," without prejudice to their respective rights and obligations under WTO agreements, and the US has withdrawn its complaint.     

In the Michigan Court of Appeals: In the Matter of AMB,a Minor

HOLDING: In the accelerating rush to judgment that occurred here, a series of legal errors and missteps following a preliminary hearing compounded what was already an excruciatingly difficult and complex situation. The record strongly suggests that no one involved in the protective proceeding had ever communicated directly with baby AMB's parents and only the testifying doctor had ever seen AMB, an infant with life-threatening disabilities. Thus, a duly enacted statutory process designed to protect individual rights, to allow the intelligent exercise of these rights, and to assure balanced and considered decision making became, instead, the opposite. There was such a relentless disregard for basic principles of law that in its opinion, the Michigan Court of Appeals attempted to assure that this tragedy is never repeated in that state.