Global Genes, Local Concerns: A Symposium on Legal, Ethical and Scientific Challenges in International Biobanking

I am happy to announce our “Global Genes, Local Concerns Symposium on Legal, Ethical and Scientific Challenges in International Biobanking” to be held at the University of Copenhagen (DK) on 16 March 2017, 08:00-18:30. Among the many prominent experts speaking at this conference  we find the PFC’s very own Glenn Cohen and several speakers with a PFC “history” or close PFC links, such as Bartha Knoppers, Tim Caulfield, Nicholson Price and Jeff Skopek.

A detailed program and further information is available here and here.

This Symposium marks the final phase of the Global Genes-Local Concerns project. In accordance with the goals of this large cross-faculty project, the Symposium deals with legal, ethical and scientific challenges in cross-national biobanking and translational exploitation. Leading international experts and invited speakers will discuss how national biobanks contribute to translational research, what opportunities and challenges regulations present for translational use of biobanks, how inter-biobank coordination and collaboration occurs on various levels, and how academic and industrial exploitation, ownership and IPR issues could be addressed and facilitated. Special emphasis will be laid on challenges and opportunities in addressing regulatory barriers to biobank research and the translation of research results, while at the same time securing ethical legitimacy and societal interests.

These issues will be dealt with in 4 main sessions covering (1) BIG DATA AND MODES OF COLLABORATION; (2) PATIENT INVOLVEMENT; (3) TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE & TECH TRANSFER, as well as (4) GUIDELINES & GOOD GOVERNANCE.

Speakers:

  • Bartha Knoppers, Mc Gill University (Canada)
  • Glenn Cohen, Harvard University (US)
  • Timo Minssen, University of Copenhagen (DK)
  • Tim Caulfield, University of Alberta (Can)
  • Michael Madison, University of Pittsburgh (US)
  • Jeff Skopek, University of Cambridge (UK)
  • Brian Clark, Director, Human Biosample Governance, Novo Nordisk A/S (DK)
  • Jane Kaye, University of Oxford (UK)
  • Anne Cambon-Thomsen, INSERM, Toulouse / CNRS Director (Fr)
  • Klaus Høyer, University of Copenhagen (DK)
  • Aaro M. Tupasela, University of Copenhagen (DK)
  • M. B. Rasmussen, University of Copenhagen (DK)
  • Åsa Hellstadius, Stockholm University (Sweden)
  • Peter Yu, A&M Texas University (US)
  • Esther van Zimmeren, University of Antwerp/Leuven (Belgium)
  • Nicholson Price, University of Michigan Law School (US)
  • Karine Sargsyan,  BBMRI/Head of Biobanking-Graz (Austria)
  • Eva Ortega-Paino,  BBMRI, Lund University (Sweden)
  • Nana Kongsholm, University of Copenhagen (DK)
  • Klemens Kappel, University of Copenhagen (DK)
  • Helen Yu, University of Copenhagen (DK).

For participation in the event please use this registration form no later than Friday, 10 March 2017, 12:00 at the latest.

We are looking very much forward to welcoming you in wonderful Copenhagen on 16 March 2017.

Best wishes/

Timo Minssen

National Survey Suggests that Off-Label Status is Material to Informed Consent

By Christopher Robertson

As many readers of this blog know, the FDA requires that, prior to entering the market, companies prove safety and efficacy for each intended use of their products, but physicians are then free to prescribe the products for any other uses.  (Companies are not allowed to promote off-label uses however.)

A recent national survey by Consumer Reports includes two interesting findings:

  1. About two-thirds (63%) of Americans “would not take a doctor prescribed medication that has been approved by the FDA, but not for their specific condition.”
  2. Almost all Americans (94%) “say they have never been told by a physician that a medication they were taking was not approved by the FDA for their condition.”

Patients are right to be skeptical of off-label uses, though they may not appreciate just how common they are.  In fact, most off-label use is unsupported by scientific evidence as to safety and efficacy.  A new report by the FDA illustrates several off-label uses that were subjected to rigorous clinical trials and turned out to be ineffective or dangerous.   For example, Aliskiren is approved for treatment of hypertension and was used off-label for prevention of congestive heart failure (CHF) complications.  A large trial showed that, although it did not significantly improve CHF mortality, it did significantly increase rates of kidney failure for CHF patients.  We do not know how many other off-label uses would fail if similarly tested.   Read More

New dimensions in patient consent to treatment

By John Tingle

In the patient care equation doctors  and nurses will always be in a more dominant and powerful position. They have the professional  knowledge the patient needs, they are in their usual environment. The patient is ill, not in their usual environment and is often thinking the worst about their condition. The law recognises the need to correct this power imbalance and cases have gone to court over matters such as patient informed consent to treatment. Modern cases emphasise the importance of patient autonomy against that of medical paternalism. In the House of Lords case of Chester v Afshar [2004] UKHL 41 involving consent to treatment failures, Lord Steyn stated:

“In modern law medical paternalism no longer rules and a patient has a prima facie right to be informed by a surgeon of a small, but well established, risk of serious injury as a result of surgery.” (Para 16).

The focus of the modern day law and that of many professional health organisations policy development is on patient rights, trying to balance the unequal care equation. Read More

Regulating genetically modified mosquitoes

By Dalia Deak

Fears of spreading zika virus have renewed interest in the use of genetically modified mosquitoes to suppress disease, with recent attention focused on the UK firm Oxitec. Last week, the developing public health crisis around zika prompted the federal government to tentatively clear a small-scale field test for the first time in the United States, pending a public comment process on a draft environmental assessment submitted by Oxitec. It should be noted that a final approval for the trial will not be made until the FDA completes the public comment process.

The genetically modified insects, which are male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, are designed to breed with the female Aedes aegypti mosquito (primarily responsible for transmitting zika, dengue fever, and other diseases) and contain a gene lethal to their offspring. The female mosquitoes lay eggs but the larvae die well before adulthood. Oxitec claims that recent tests have shown up to a 90% decrease in the population of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, with a recent test in Piracicaba (~100 miles from Sao Paulo in Brazil) showing an 82% decline. Tests have also been conducted in the Cayman Islands and Malaysia.

In the United States, Oxitec is in the process of waiting for FDA approval to conduct trials in the Florida Keys. However, this is relatively unclear and uncharted territory for the federal government in terms of what group should be responsible for the review, and the decision for the CVM jurisdiction in this case remains hotly debated. Jurisdictional debate exists between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) and Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM).

Read More

Hormonal Treatment to Trans Children – But what if?

A few weeks ago I ran across this BuzzFeed post, telling the story of Corey Mason, a 14 year old male to female Trans teenager who was filmed getting her first pack of estrogen hormones. Her mom Erica, who uploaded the video to Facebook and YouTube, spurred a social-media discussion on the topic of hormonal treatment for Trans children and youth.

Erica said the vast majority of reactions were very supportive. On the other hand, different views and opinions were put on the table as well, even from people who ally completely with Trans identity politics.  One of them, a Trans woman, said she fears from rushing (perhaps gay) teenagers into irreversible treatments, as most Trans kids “GROW OUT OF IT”. Aoife commentThis position was also taken by Alice Dreger, a Bioethicist and a historian writing on Intersex issues, in describing the uneasy choice between the two models available at the moment: On the one hand you have the ‘therapeutic model’ offering mental health support to the Trans person and/or family, to help ease up the tensions caused by gender identity dysphoria (GID). This model aims to relax the dysphoria and so avoids any medical irreversible interventions. On the other hand, you have the ‘accommodation model’ asserting there’s nothing wrong with the trans person and/or his/her family, and so offers medical interventions to accommodate it.[1]

Read More

Uninsured Practice of Medicine as Actionable Tort

By Alex Stein

A week ago, the Supreme Court of New Jersey has delivered an important decision on whether uninsured practice of medicine is actionable in torts. Jarrell v. Kaul, — A.3d —- 2015 WL 5683722 (N.J. 2015). This decision involved an uninsured anesthesiologist who allegedly provided negligent pain management treatment to a patient. Under New Jersey statute, N.J.S.A. 45:9–19.17; N.J.A.C. 13:35–6.18(b), a physician’s license to practice medicine is only valid when she holds medical-malpractice liability insurance in the requisite amounts. Read More

Proving Decision-Causation

By Alex Stein

Proving decision-causation in a suit for informed-consent violation is never easy. Things get even worse when a trial judge misinterprets the criteria for determining – counterfactually – whether the patient would have agreed to the chosen treatment if she were to receive full information about its benefits, risks, and alternatives. The recent Tennessee Supreme Court decision, White v. Beeks, — S.W.3d —- 2015 WL 2375458 (Tenn. 2015), is a case in point. Read More

The South Dakota Effect: A Potential Blow to Abortion Rights

By Alex Stein

Many of us are familiar with the “California Effect.” California’s hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emission standards for cars are more stringent than the federal EPA standards and more costly to comply with. Yet, California’s emission standards have become the national standard since automobile manufacturers have found it too expensive to produce cars with different emission systems – one for California and another for other states – and, obviously, did not want to pass up on California, the biggest car market in the nation.

Such regulatory spillover may also occur in the abortion regulation area as a consequence of the legislative reforms implemented by South Dakota and thirteen other states. These reforms include statutory enactments that require doctors to tell patients that abortion might lead to depression, suicidal thoughts and even to suicide. Failure to give this warning to a patient violates the patient’s right to informed consent and makes the doctor liable in torts. Read More

Cassandra C. Goes Home – Connecticut Misses an Opportunity

By Jonathan F. Will

On Monday Cassandra C. was sent home from the hospital.  Her cancer is in remission after responding well to treatments.  Many will recall that those treatments were forced on Cassandra against her wishes and those of her mother.   Back in January, the Connecticut Supreme Court issued a two-page order agreeing with state officials that Cassandra, at seventeen years three months, should be compelled to undergo chemotherapy to treat her Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

The success of this medical treatment may be viewed by some to vindicate the comments of those like bioethicist Art Caplan and Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr., who agreed with the decision.  Indeed, Mr. Johnson, after giving a personal anecdote of his own history with Hodgkin’s Disease, declared this decision to be right on the law, right on the ethics, and right on humanity.

Mr. Johnson gave the impression that a minor should never be permitted to make such a medical decision, while Dr. Caplan at least implied that his conclusion might be different if the refusal was based on religious beliefs.  Then you have a commentator in The Economist who came to the exact opposite conclusion.  He expressed concerns about Cassandra’s liberty and the rights of her mother to make decisions on her behalf.

I’m not so easily convinced by their arguments.

Read More

Arizona Enacts “Abortion Reversal” Law

Allison M. Whelan, J.D.
Senior Fellow, Center for Biotechnology & Global Health Policy, University of California, Irvine School of Law
Guest Blogger

On Wednesday, March 25, Arizona legislators passed a bill prohibiting women from buying insurance plans that cover abortions on the federal health exchange.  Senate Bill 1318 also includes a provision on medical abortions, which are typically used during the first nine weeks of gestation. Medical abortions involve taking two pills within a few days of each other.  The law requires doctors performing such abortions to tell their patients that if they reconsider their abortion after taking their first pill, they should return to the doctor for a procedure that can allegedly “reverse” the abortion.  The law amends Arizona Statute § 36-2153 to add that at least twenty-four hours before an abortion is performed, the physician must orally and in person inform the woman that “it may be possible to reverse the effects of a medication abortion if the woman changes her mind but that time is of the essence.” The law also requires the Department of Health Services to update its website to include information about the potential ability to reverse a medical abortion.  Republican Governor Doug Ducey, who opposes abortion rights, signed the law on March 30, 2015.

Like any law addressing abortion, the law is controversial. Abortion opponents lauded the bill, stating that Wednesday, March 25th was a “great day for women in Arizona who are considering getting an abortion to get all the facts they need.” On the other hand, women’s rights and health care providers’ groups oppose the coverage exclusion and vehemently oppose the abortion “reversal” provisions.  Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs called it “junk science” and “quack medicine.”  Arizona-based gynecologist Ilana Addis stated that there is no evidence to support this provision and women would essentially be “unknowing and unwilling guinea pigs.” Read More