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The article offer information about Paul Giannelli, an American lawyer, consultant and law professor. It reports that he is a leading expert on scientific and forensic evidence and currently a Distinguished University Professor and the Albert J. Weatherhead III & Richard W. Weatherhead Professor Emeritus of Law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Discusses legal and ethical issues relating to consent with cognitively-impaired research subjects. Nuremberg Code as starting point for evaluating the historical context of human experimentation in the United States; Allowance for proxy consent or even a complete waiver of consent if for a subject's best interests in the 1964 Helsinki Declaration.

The article analyzes the possible effects of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010 on charity care in the U.S. The act is designed to cover thirty-two million of the uninsured Americans and poses limited penalties. Senator Charles Grassley has proposed a federal legislation to establish minimum charity care standards for hospitals. It notes that the health reform legislation addresses some of the charity care issues such as requiring hospitals to have an appropriate financial assistance policy.

Explores the legal issues involving bioterrorism in the U.S. Escalation of threat in travel safety; Increase of anthrax contaminations; Implementation of compulsory vaccinations and chemical and biological warfare.

The article offers views on the debate over the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes in the U.S. It infers that the debacle over marijuana access to medical treatment rests upon the power between states and the federal government. Several court cases which challenged the authority of the Food and Drug Administration to limit access to experimental drugs are stated.

Building on the knowledge generated by the long history of disease-oriented research, the next few decades will witness an explosion of biomedical enhancements to make people faster, stronger, smarter, less forgetful, happier, prettier, and live longer. Growing interest in pediatric enhancements is likely to stimulate the conduct of enhancement research involving children. However, guidelines for the protection of human subjects were developed for investigations of therapeutic modalities. To date, virtually no attention has been paid to whether these rules would be appropriate for investigations to establish the safety and efficacy of technologies intended for enhancement rather than therapeutic uses and, if not, whether ethically acceptable rules could be designed. This article discusses whether the current guidelines for pediatric research provide appropriate protections for pediatric subjects in enhancement research and considers what additional protections might be necessary.

This essay considers the potential role of bioethics in disaster response planning and preparedness. Bioethicists can make substantial contributions, by ensuring that decision-making and distribution of resources during crises is carried out in a fair and just manner, as well as by examining the assumptions upon which disaster planning are based. Bioethicists should also be aware of potential pitfalls of overly-hasty engagement with this new field.