Evaluating the Revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 12:00pm Wasserstein Hall 3018, Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave. The DSM is the reference used by clinicians, researchers, and insurers to diagnose and classify mental disorders, with the intent to provide specific, objective criteria by which to assess symptoms…
By Michael J. Young Earlier this month, landmark findings were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry illuminating the effect of disclosing genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease on older adults’ cognition and memory. In a case-control study, researchers administered memory function tests to a group of known carriers of the apolipoprotein E4 allele (one of the…
By I. Glenn Cohen As part of a public lecture series at the Radcliffe Institute on “Smart Clothes” I delivered a public lecture entitled “The Ethicist’s and the Lawyer’s New Clothes: The Law and Ethics of Smart Clothes.” The lecture is now available for viewing on youtube. As the promotional materials described the lecture: “From…
By Jennifer S. Bard, J.D., M.P.H., Ph.D. Cross-posted from HealthLawProf Blog. Originally posted January 20, 2014. What are We Learning About Brain Death from the McMath and Munoz cases? With the understanding that this is one of those topics that health law professors are supposed to know something about, here is a quick update of…
By Arthur Caplan Art Caplan has a new piece, co-authored with David C. Magnus, Ph.D. and Benjamin S. Wilfond, M.D., in the NEJM, addressing the legal and medical reasons for accepting brain death as death. From the article: Over the past several decades, brain death has become well entrenched as a legal and medical definition of…
Petrie-Flom Center Student Fellow Michael J. Young has published a new piece in AJOB Neuroscience on “Ethics and Ontology in Deep Brain Stimulation.” From the article: Rapid advancements in the fields of neurology and neuroscience over the past decade have enabled unprecedented progress toward the development of brain-modulating technologies and therapeutics. Central to these advancements are…
By Michelle Meyer UPDATE: Following Friday’s court order (discussed below), the hospital today (Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014) removed the ventilator from Marlise Munoz, who has met the criteria for brain death since Nov. 28, 2013. Two high-profile, rapidly evolving cases involving death by neurological criteria — better known as “brain death” — raise vexing and…
By The Petrie-Flom Center Where do we draw the line between protection and paternalism? What constitutes a bad financial decision? Who needs additional protections?
By Matthew L Baum I recently saw someone walk into a signpost (amazingly, one that signalled ‘caution pedestrians’); by the angle and magnitude that his body rebounded, I estimated that this probably really hurt. What I had witnessed was a danger of walking under the influence of a smart phone. Because this man lacked the…
By The Petrie-Flom Center The Petrie-Flom Center is pleased to host a live webstream of sessions from the International Neuroethics Society‘s 2013 Annual Meeting on Friday, November 8, in the Petrie-Flom Center conference room (302) at 23 Everett St. on the Harvard Law School campus. Participants are encouraged to submit questions directly to the panels via…
