Three small points:
What about the presumption of innocence?
Is the medical profession a branch of law enforcement?
Does the state have a right of hegemony over our bodies, for anything other
than our own benefit, when we are temporarily unable to decide what is done
with our bodies for ourselves?
This isn't about protecting drunk drivers. It is about professional ethics
and the balance of power between the state and the individual.
The new law is badly drafted and may well create more problems in its
application than the evil which it is intended to address have caused. It
is, however, better than the law in the US where in most states simply
driving on a public road is regarded as giving implied consent to the
collection of a blood sample if a police officer has reasonable cause to
believe he needs it in the course of his investigation. Since you have given
implied consent by driving, the sample can then be collected from you by
force without any true consent.... There is nothing in the new English
legislation that allows a doctor in charge of the patient's care to withdraw
his consent to the collection of the blood sample if the patient becomes
agitated during the procedure and the "police medical practitioner" presses
on. That could lead to some really nice scenes in casualty or on the wards.
Robert Forrest
> -----Original Message-----
> From: clinical biochemistry discussion list
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of
> [log in to unmask]
> Sent: 01 October 2002 13:58
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: New law on breth tests
>
>
> It is interesting that topics such as this should produce a
> flurry of email
> activity as for example the recent large number of messages re add on
> tests.Yet queries of a clinical nature often elicit little response. Too
> much watching our own backs chaps.
>
> I can not believe that protecting drunk drivers who may have killed or
> seriously injured people is in the best interests of the public or the
> medical profession. It seems to me illogical that an offender should
> escape justice just because he did not consent to a blood sample while
> he was unconscious. Yes there are problems of civil liberties but if
> there is no alcohol in the blood then no one is really harmed and if
> there is the the wheels of the justice system can begin to turn. The
> bereaved and the injured have their rights also. The only thing we
> need to be concerned with is that the police must act within the law. If
> that is so then it is unlikely anything will happen to lab staff
> who in any
> case will normally not handle the specimen. I myself would have no
> problem in meeting a request from a police officer if if there was the
> slightest possibility that the patient had been drinking and had been
> involved in an accident. It would not matter if no one else had been
> involved because they could have been.
>
> Mike Addison
>
>
>
> Dr G.Michael Addison
> Royal Manchester Children's Hospital
> Pendlebury
> Manchester M27 4HA
> United Kingdom
>
> Tel 0161-727-2250(AM)or 0161-220-5342(PM)
> FAX 0161-727-2249
> Email [log in to unmask]
>
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