~ ~ ~ ~
X> INFORMED CONSENT: REALITY OR MYTH?
http://www.burtonreport.com/InfForensic/InformedConsent.html
"...adhesive arachnoiditis; a present and real worldwide health care problem."
" The phenomenon of "managed care" has introduced additional challenges to the concept of "informed consent". In their quest to justify denial of coverage for their subscribers many third party payors, seeking an opportunity to say "no" to treatment being recommended for a patient, often use the term "not proven" or "experimental" as a means of denying coverage.
" Now that the unique immunity against legal suit provided by ERISA is in the slow process of being stripped away by the courts the health care "playing field" may, finally, become more level."
" A level playing field is particularly needed in the arena of informed consent because full disclosure of risk is typically taken to be a medical "right" in the United States."
" Most interested patients in the United States today are reasonably cognizant of risk factors as more trustworthy information continues to appear on the internet. There are, however, a number of areas where informed consent remains, quite remarkably, almost absent. In fact there are a number of examples of serious health risks which have continued unabated over many years (and sometimes decades). Many of these are still unassociated with adequate public disclosure and few in the legal profession have yet "stepped up to the plate" to assist in assisting the public interest."
" The most prominent example of this has been, and continues to be, those serious complications resulting from the introduction of foreign body substances into the subarachnoid space for the purpose of myelography and ill-advised and performed epidural steroid injections. The complication is that of clinically significant adhesive arachnoiditis. This particular entity represents one of the most flagrant examples of a ongoing world-wide serious public health problem due to many years of industry misinformation and cover-up. Patient suffering secondary to adhesive arachnoiditis serves as a frightening example of an area where, as of year 2000, where it is difficult to find a single patient who has ever been provided with real informed consent."
"No area of informed consent is more important than that of medical research and the involvement of human subjects."
" Informed consent is an essential requirement for the well-being of any modern health care system in the 21st century. Informed consent is based on full disclosure of known significant risk (the easy part)."
PLEASE GO TO THE ABOVE WEBSITE TO READ THIS ENTIRE ARTICLE...