The neurotechnology sector is likely to develop under pressure towards commercialized, nonmedical products and may also undergo market consolidation. This possibility raises ethical, social, and policy concerns about the future responsibility of neurotechnology innovators and companies for high-consequence design decisions. Present-day internet technology firms furnish an instructive example of the problems that arise when providers of communicative technologies become too big for accountability. As a guardrail against the emergence of similar problems, concerned neurotechnologists may wish to draw inspiration from antitrust law and direct efforts, where appropriate, against undue consolidation in the commercial neurotechnology market.

The coronavirus crisis is causing considerable disruption and anguish. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent explosion of telehealth services also provide an unparalleled opportunity to consider ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) beyond immediate needs. Ethicists, informaticians, and others can learn from experience, and evaluate information technology practices and evidence on which to base policy and standards, identify significant values and issues, and revise ethical guidelines. This paper builds on professional organizations’ guidelines and ELSI scholarship to develop emerging concerns illuminated by current experience. Four ethical themes characterized previous literature: quality of care and the doctor–patient relationship, access, consent, and privacy. More attention is needed to these and to expanding the scope of ethical analysis to include health information technologies. An applied ethics approach to ELSI would addresses context-specific issues and the relationships between people and technologies, and facilitate effective and ethical institutionalization of telehealth and other health information technologies.

Among healthy volunteers in psychiatric brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research studies, the prevalence of incidentalomas can be as high as 34%, of which 10% show clinical significance. An incidentaloma is a lesion found by coincidence without clinical symptoms or suspicion. Like lesions and other types of accidental findings, it is found in healthy individuals recruited to take part in psychiatric studies. The prevalence of these accidental findings among specific psychiatric populations remains unknown. However, a precise understanding of cerebral neuroanatomy, neuroradiological expertise, and an appropriate choice of fMRI exploration sequences will increase the sensitivity of identifying these accidental findings and enable researchers to address their clinical relevance and nature. We present recommendations on how to appropriately inform patients or participants of the accidental findings. Additionally, we propose specific suggestions pertaining to the clinical research setting aimed for investigators and psychiatrists. Unlike current articles pertaining to incidentaloma, the current report provides a distinct focus on psychiatric issues and specific recommendations for studies involving psychiatric patients.

DNA barcoding is now a common tool in parasitology and epidemiology, which require good methods for identification not only of parasites and pathogens but vectors and reservoirs. This special issue presents some advances and challenges in barcoding of microbes, parasites, and their vectors and reservoirs. DNA barcoding found new applications in disease ecology, conservation parasitology, environmental parasitology and in paleoparasitology. New technologies such as next-generation sequencing and matrix-assisted laser desorption–ionization time-of-flight have made it now possible to investigate large samples of specimens. By allowing the investigation of parasites at the interface between environment, biodiversity, animal and human health, barcoding and biobanking have important policy outcomes as well as ethics and legal implications. The special issue ‘Advances and challenges in the barcoding of parasites, vectors and reservoirs’ illustrates some recent advances and proposes new avenues for research in barcoding in parasitology.

Objectives: Legal analysis can highlight important issues that are relevant when deciding whether a medical technology should be implemented or reimbursed. Literature and studies show that even though the law is an acknowledged part of health technology assessment (HTA), legal issues are rarely considered in practice. One reason for this may be the lack of knowledge about the diversity of legal issues that are relevant for HTA. Therefore, this contribution aims primarily to identify and then explain the relevant legal issues in HTA. This study offers a framework for identifying the legal issues in HTAs in different jurisdictions and provides a basis for further research.

Methods: After extensive literature search, the authors review Swiss health law to identify legal issues that are relevant to HTA. The authors then categorize these legal issues using a framework with an inside and outside perspective. Finally, they explain a selection of these legal issues with several examples.

Results: This study reveals numerous legal issues that are relevant for HTA and underlines the necessity of incorporating legal analysis in HTAs. The suggested perspectival framework in this study provides a basis to structure the legal analysis. The identified legal issues are relevant in other countries and the perspectival framework is transferable to other jurisdictions.

Conclusions: The article underlines the importance of in-depth discussion about the role of law in HTA. It provides a structured overview of the legal issues in HTA and suggests a development of more concrete instruments toward a standardized legal technology assessment.

Health care providers and their legal counsel play pivotal roles in preparing for and responding to public health emergencies. Lawyers representing hospitals, health systems, and other health care provider components are being called upon to answer complex legal questions regarding public health preparedness issues that most providers have not previously faced. Many of these issues are legal issues with which public health officials should be familiar, and that can serve as a starting point for cross-sector legal preparedness planning involving both the public health and health care communities. This article examines legal issues that health care providers face in preparing for public health emergencies, and steps that providers, their legal counsel, and others can take to address those issues and to strengthen community preparedness. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2008;2:50–56)

It is 30 years since major changes were last made to the collision regulations. This paper identifies a number of shortcomings in the current Rules, including excessive verbiage, unnecessary duplications and complications, and the use of weasel words. It also examines the use that has been made of Rule 2 in broadening the interpretation of other Rules. Proposals are then put forward for rewriting The Rules so as to improve their clarity and hopefully their understanding. The paper is written from the viewpoint of a mariner.