NCJ Number
132383
Date Published
1990
Length
220 pages
Annotation
This book discusses separate but related areas of British law of concern to both medical and family lawyers as well as to the medical profession generally: the legal problem that arise out of HIV testing and AIDS and the technique of DNA profiling.
Abstract
The link between the discussion of HIV and AIDS on the one hand and DNA profiling on the other is the testing of blood and the use made of blood and its derivatives by the medical community. The chapter on HIV testing and the law concludes that the United Kingdom should have a law similar to New York State law which provides legal protection to a person who undergoes an HIV test, including the need for written informed consent, counseling, and confidentiality. The chapter on confidentiality and HIV testing examines the existence and scope of the legal obligation of confidence to which a patient who has been tested for HIV infection is entitled. It also analyzes the circumstances, if any, where the law will permit, or even require, a doctor to disclose the HIV status of a patient to a third party. One chapter addresses the liability in negligence between the Health Service and a patient who receives blood or blood products, and another discusses the liability in negligence beyond this relationship to include other potential defendants who may be liable to the patient as well as other potential plaintiffs who may have an action against the Health Service. A chapter on the Consumer Protection Act of 1987 considers who may bring action under the act, who can be liable under the act, when a product must be supplied so as to fall within the act's provision, whether the transfusion of blood or blood products is within the act, and whether infected blood is "defective" under the act. The concluding chapter discusses DNA profiling and blood testing to determine proof of parentage. Chapter footnotes and a subject index