			Home About us Contact

Special Protection (special + protection)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Pitfalls in non-therapeutic research in children

PEDIATRIC PULMONOLOGY, Issue 11 2006
George B. Mallory Jr.
Research has brought significant medical advances in modern times benefiting virtually all people. Children as a class should not be excluded from research studies. However, non-therapeutic research is potentially problematic in children because they must be afforded special protection from harm and exploitation by care-givers, researchers, and institutional review boards. An article in this month's journal provides an opportunity for a systematic analysis using the methodology provided by the United States Code of Federal Regulations. The research design of this particular study does not appear to stand up to the requirements of the Code. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2006, 41:1014,1016. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

The Mythology of Human Rights

RATIO JURIS, Issue 3 2008
GUNNAR BECK
The underlying assumption,the idea that there are some human values that deserve special protection,implies the need for both a normative and a conceptual justification. This paper claims that neither can be provided. The normative justification is needed to support the priority of human rights over other human goods and to rank and balance conflicting human rights, but it can't be provided because of the fact of pervasive value pluralism, the fact that human values are many, incompatible and incommensurable. The conceptual justification is needed to avoid arbitrariness in the interpretation of human rights at the adjudication stage. Such a justification is impossible, however, as the concept of human rights, and the concepts used to justify them and to solve their conflicts are "essentially contested concepts." The paper concludes that, provided that the interpretation of human rights presupposes value judgements and political choices, the special legal status accorded to human rights is not justified. [source]

Legally regulating intergenerationally transmitted debt

AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL ON AGEING, Issue 2005
Fiona R Burns
This article considers the phenomenon of intergenerationally transmitted debt in Australia from the legal perspective. It will be argued that generally while confident and capable elders ought to be able to deal with their assets how they think fit, elders may suffer from vulnerabilities which prevent them from protecting their interests. The legal regulation of guarantees is presently a unco-ordinated and complex amalgam of case law, statute and finance industry self-regulatory codes which do not accord elders any special protection. This article suggests that it may be necessary to take some steps to protect vulnerable elders while still recognising their rights to exercise autonomy over assets. [source]

VULNERABILITY IN RESEARCH AND HEALTH CARE; DESCRIBING THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM?

BIOETHICS, Issue 4 2008
SAMIA A. HURST
ABSTRACT Despite broad agreement that the vulnerable have a claim to special protection, defining vulnerable persons or populations has proved more difficult than we would like. This is a theoretical as well as a practical problem, as it hinders both convincing justifications for this claim and the practical application of required protections. In this paper, I review consent-based, harm-based, and comprehensive definitions of vulnerability in healthcare and research with human subjects. Although current definitions are subject to critique, their underlying assumptions may be complementary. I propose that we should define vulnerability in research and healthcare as an identifiably increased likelihood of incurring additional or greater wrong. In order to identify the vulnerable, as well as the type of protection that they need, this definition requires that we start from the sorts of wrongs likely to occur and from identifiable increments in the likelihood, or to the likely degree, that these wrongs will occur. It is limited but appropriately so, as it only applies to special protection, not to any protection to which we have a valid claim. Using this definition would clarify that the normative force of claims for special protection does not rest with vulnerability itself, but with pre-existing claims when these are more likely to be denied. Such a clarification could help those who carry responsibility for the protection of vulnerable populations, such as Institutional Review Boards, to define the sort of protection required in a more targeted and effective manner. [source]