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Much political, media and academic attention has focused on: (1) the legal test for evaluating whether there has been a breach of duty in the provision of innovative treatment; and (2) the extent to which the law reform proposed by Lord Saatchi in the Medical Innovation Bill (MIB) was necessary or desirable to relieve doctors of (perceived) legal strictures preventing innovative treatments. However, comparatively little attention has focused on the requirement that patients must provide consent to innovative treatment. In this paper we argue that the English and Australian law relating to consent is capable of application in the context of innovative treatment so as to provide certainty for health professionals and promote patient autonomy.

This special issue features papers culminating from a six seminar ESRC series ‘Liability versus innovation: Unpacking Key Connections,’ convened between December 2015 and September 2017 at Keele, QUT (Brisbane, Australia) and Durham universities.11 See: ‘Liability v Innovation: Unpacking Key Connections, An ESRC Seminar Series’. The support of ESRC towards this research is acknowledged. The seminar series was conceived in response to perceptions of scientists and clinicians that, despite the pro innovation rhetoric in Government policy documents,the threat of malpractice liability might stifle innovative treatment (IT). Such perceptions are supported by two related claims common in medico-legal literature – that the threat of legal liability following adverse outcomes causes defensive medicine, and that the threat of legal liability stifles innovation. The extent of these problems remains disputed. In particular, the Bolam-Bolitho test of clinical negligence in England – which excludes liability for clinical decisions accepted as proper by a responsible body of skilled medical peers unless such practice is illogical – is arguably problematic in terms of incentives to engage in IT. An IT is by definition less likely to accord with accepted practice. So, while policy-makers encourage and pay considerable lip service to innovation, tort law might give the opposite incentive to clinicians. Or so goes the argument.

Electrolyzed water (EW) has recently attracted much attention due to its efficacy against a broad spectrum of microorganisms. In this study, we investigated the impact of two EW treatments (40 and 400 mg/L free chlorine) on grape mycobiota using culture-dependent and -independent approaches. Moreover, the effect of yeast inoculation on treated and non-treated grapes was also considered. At the end of the fermentation, the wines produced were subjected to chemical and aroma analyses. The results revealed a decrease of about 0.5 log CFU/mL of the total yeast population on grapes surface independently of the dose of EW applied. Yeast inoculation and EW treatments shortened the time needed by Saccharomyces cerevisiae to dominate apiculate yeasts, particularly, 2 days for inoculated and 7 days for spontaneous fermentations. A decrease of acetic acid (about 55%) was also observed compared to untreated spontaneous fermentation. In addition, aroma analysis highlighted a positive contribution of inoculated yeast on the wine aromas, since they had approximately 50 % higher pleasant esters compared to spontaneous fermented wines. Industrial Relevance: Sulfur dioxide is widely used in crushed grapes prior to fermentation due to its antimicrobial and antioxidant activity. However, legislative rules, health risks and negative consumer perception related to its presence and use have resulted in a need to find new sanitizers able to reduce its use. The effectiveness of EW to reduce yeast species able to produce high levels of undesirable compounds was demonstrated. This research introduced an innovative antimicrobial agent, which could assist in the first step of wine production to reduce the use of SO2.