Medicine, Science and the Law最新文献

{"title":"The criminalisation of miscarriage associated with illicit substance consumption whilst pregnant.","authors":"Josephine Taylor, Sajeel A Shah, Nikolas P Lemos","doi":"10.1177/00258024221140666","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221140666","url":null,"abstract":"The official rights of a foetus continue to be an unending legal and philosophical conversation. Yet newer discussion has emerged on the convictions of mothers for their spontaneous loss of pregnancy. In October 2021, the state of Oklahoma convicted Brittney Poolaw of first-degree manslaughter after the miscarriage of her 15 to 17-week-old foetus and sentenced her to four years in prison. After admitting to methamphetamine and marijuana use during pregnancy, trace quantities of these substances were found in the foetus’ brain and liver on postmortem. However, the report also cited evidence of ‘congenital abnormality ... placental abruption and chorioamnionitis’, all deemed by the medical examiner as ‘conditions contributing’ to miscarriage. As 12–24% of recognised pregnancies result in miscarriage, there is no consistent, investigatory process to consider these as homicides. Currently, a growing adversarial relationship between pregnant women and their foetuses is challenging women’s rights. Between 2006 and 2020, the National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) identified 1254 cases where women but for their pregnancy, would not have been subject to legal charges. Expanding awareness of prenatal harms questions the expectation for pregnant women to conform to new, scientific discoveries. Can a woman be wrong ‘for drinking coffee or exercising too little, each of which could pose some risk to a fetus’?. There is legal contention on the shifting grounds convicting Poolaw. By ruling miscarriage as manslaughter, the intentional abortion of a foetus could constitute a murder. However, at the time, Oklahoma permitted abortion up to 22 weeks of gestation. Poolaw’s 17-week-old foetus was not viable, and a termination of pregnancy would be legal. Furthermore, criminalising substance abuse whilst pregnant may conversely not protect the health of mother and child as fear of punishment creates a healthcare barrier. In Oklahoma and 24 other states, healthcare providers must report suspected prenatal drug use to police. Yet pregnancy could catalyse a change in mindset, producing a window of opportunity for cessation of recreational drug use that should be harnessed. Some argue incarceration for addiction is the wrong approach for a classified disease, considering the successful approach of Portugal to prioritise the ‘psychosocial vulnerability of high-risk users’ by decriminalising drug use in 2000. Roe v Wade 1973 used to shape a legal framework in the US, meaning states could not outlaw abortion before the point of foetal viability. States could restrict abortion before that point but not inflict ‘undue burden’ on women seeking abortions (Planned Parenthood v Casey 1992). In May 2022, Oklahoma signed the Heartbeat Act – Senate Bill 1503, one of the most restrictive bans across the US. It sidestepped Roe v Wade by using civilian enforcement rather than state officials to criminalise abortion if cardiac activity can be detected. Now the legal basis of Roe v W","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10262324/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9906651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Provision of forensic healthcare services for police custodial settings in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: Current practice and implications for other services?","authors":"Kieran M Kennedy,&nbsp;Grace J Payne-James,&nbsp;J Jason Payne-James,&nbsp;Peter G Green","doi":"10.1177/00258024221136721","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221136721","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Provision of forensic healthcare services may affect patient safety and criminal justice outcomes. We reviewed models of delivery for services in police custody in terms of cost, types of healthcare professionals and their minimum required experience, training and qualification. Relevant information was requested under the Freedom of Information Act from all police services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Additional information was sought from the London Ambulance Service and the Metropolitan Police Service. A third of respondent police services refused to provide the requested information and only a small minority answered the questions in their entirety. Many police services cited excessive cost and commercial interests as reasons for not providing the information. A marked variation in models of forensic healthcare provision across police services which responded was identified. London Ambulance Service call-outs to Metropolitan Police Service custody suites for those arrested varied from 0% to 3.8%. There is substantial inconsistency and variability of information on forensic healthcare services in police custody. A standardised national dataset of all aspects of police custodial healthcare (irrespective of by whom such services are provided) should be established. We advise that the Association of Police & Crime Commissioners, College of Policing the National Police Chiefs' Council and NHS England Health and Justice engage on these matters and work with the Faculty of Forensic & Legal Medicine, the United Kingdom Association of Forensic Nurses and Paramedics, and the College of Paramedics to restart the transfer of all police custodial healthcare services to the National Health Service.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9584699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An overview of suicides related to motor vehicles.","authors":"Siobhan O'Donovan,&nbsp;Corinna van den Heuvel,&nbsp;Matthew Baldock,&nbsp;Roger W Byard","doi":"10.1177/00258024221122187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221122187","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Although vehicles may be used in a wide variety of suicides, this has not been a focus in the forensic literature. Thus, an analysis of coronial autopsy reports at Forensic Science SA, Adelaide, South Australia over a 16-year period from January 2005 to December 2020 was undertaken to provide an overview of cases in which it was considered that a vehicle had been integral to the successful completion of a suicide. De-identified details were collected from all cases in which a vehicle had facilitated or been used as a method of suicide. A number of different types of vehicle-related suicide methods were identified, including cases where vehicles had been used as secure places for suicide or where the vehicle had been used to cause significant blunt force trauma or to enter a lethal environment such as water. Specific examples were taken from the following categories: (1) inhalation of gas, (2) drug toxicity, (3) hanging or ligature strangulation, (4) self-immolation, (5) drowning, (6) vehicle collision, (7) driving off a cliff, (8) jumping or lying in front of a vehicle and (9) the use of more than one method (i.e. complex). This report is not intended to provide an epidemiological analysis of car-related suicides. Instead, the details of selected cases have been used to illustrate the spectrum of methods that may be used in vehicle-assisted suicides.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9194461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Current state of cause of death determinations in Japan and the need to list the precise underlying cause of death.","authors":"Ken Inoue,&nbsp;Shuntaro Abe,&nbsp;Tatsushige Fukunaga","doi":"10.1177/00258024221102203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221102203","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When death is caused by a disease, the precise cause of the death must be determined to promote health and contribute to prevention efforts. The circumstances of death should also be clarified so that measures can be taken to prevent the recurrence. Statistics regarding the cause of death must be accurate, and such statistics are shaped by the determination of the cause of death. We examined the annual cause of death rankings and the mortality rate in Japan during the 25-year period 1993-2017. We identified improvements that are needed to provide more precision in the cause of death statistics, with a focus on variations in the rankings, and we describe the peculiar and vulnerable aspects of the Vital Statistics system in Japan; for example, at one time the national government advised physicians to not list \"heart failure\" as the terminal stage of a condition on a death certificate, and the \"heart disease\" mortality rate thus tended to decline in that period. The ranking of \"heart disease\" as a cause of death decreased, but its mortality rate subsequently increased again. In addition, the \"pneumonia\" mortality rate has remained high over the past few years, but it abruptly decreased in 2017, when \"aspiration pneumonia\" was separated as a cause from other pneumonias. The \"senility\" mortality rate has increased annually, and it is a leading cause of death. It is important that physicians understand the underlying causes of death and provide that without being influenced by the reporting customs of the times.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9248075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mental health in prisons in Latin America: The effects of COVID-19.","authors":"Andrew Forrester,&nbsp;Anne Aboaja,&nbsp;Lukas Beigel,&nbsp;Adrian P Mundt,&nbsp;Guillermo Rivera,&nbsp;Julio Torales","doi":"10.1177/00258024221149932","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221149932","url":null,"abstract":"Latin America is a vast region of the world. In 2022, it is estimated that nearly 620 million people live in 33 countries spanning almost 20 million km across North, South and Central America, and the Caribbean. These countries are united by their common historic cultural origins. It is estimated that Spanish is spoken by 400 million, and Portuguese by 200 million people in the region. Quechua is the most widely spoken indigenous language in the region, with around 8 million speakers; smaller numbers speak around 560 other indigenous languages such as Mayan, Guarani, and Nahuatl. The region was described as having a total gross domestic product (GDP) of almost 4.7 trillion US dollars in 2020, with substantial contributions from the four largest economies—Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. However, Latin American countries are mainly considered developing nations. Meanwhile, it is thought that nearly 12 million people were detained in prisons throughout the world in 2019, of which at least 1.6 million were held in prisons in Latin America (1.163 million in South America, 340,000 in Central America, and 122,000 in the Caribbean). These numbers have been increasing throughout the twenty-first century, as the world’s prison population has risen by 24% since the year 2000. However, the prison population growth in Latin American countries has been extreme, with reported increases of 77% in Central America, and 200% in South America. In 2022, prison population rates were 478–605 prisoners per 100,000 people in the Latin American countries with the highest occupancy (El Salvador, Cuba, and Panama). In Bolivia, with a rate of 175 prisoners per 100,000, the level of overcrowding in some prisons was nonetheless as high as 891% of capacity in 2018. The reasons are linked to multiple factors, including increasing levels of crime and insecurity along with the rise of penal populism and zero tolerance policies, contributing to longer prison sentences. Decreases in psychiatric beds have also been found to correlate significantly with increases in the prison population in Latin American countries. People in prison present with very high levels of mental ill-health and substance misuse. For example, the global estimated prevalence of psychosis is 3.6% amongst male, and 3.9% amongst female prisoners, while the estimated prevalence of depression is 10.2% amongst male and 14.1% amongst female prisoners. Neurodevelopmental conditions also feature prominently in this group, with intellectual disabilities said to be present in around 2.9% of prisoners, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in 26.2%. Prisoners have a high level of maltreatment in childhood, with almost half reporting four or more adverse childhood experiences. Unsurprisingly, prisoners therefore present with high reported levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, amongst 6.2% of male and 21.1% of female prisoners, and personality disorder in an estimated 65%. Similarly, high levels of drug and ","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9836837/pdf/10.1177_00258024221149932.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9250472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Emerging trends in domestic homicide/femicide in Greece over the period 2010-2021.","authors":"Maria-Valeria Karakasi,&nbsp;Polychronis Voultsos,&nbsp;Eleni Fotou,&nbsp;Ioannis Nikolaidis,&nbsp;Maria Sofia Kyriakou,&nbsp;Maria Markopoulou,&nbsp;Athanasios Douzenis,&nbsp;Pavlos Pavlidis","doi":"10.1177/00258024221103700","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221103700","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Temporal trends in epidemiological parameters of domestic homicide and femicide in Greece over the last decade have not yet been studied. We conducted this study to fulfill this purpose. Specifically, we conducted a retrospective epidemiological study using 11-year data from the official nationwide Hellenic Police Archives and statistically analyzed data regarding domestic homicide and femicide. Overall, 1370 records of homicides among which 236 domestic homicides were identified. The pattern emerging from the statistical results of the present study highlighted the phenomenon of femicide as the gravest current issue to be interpreted and addressed. Nationally, the average number of homicides was 114.2/year, among which 19.7 domestic homicides. However, in 2021, while a decrease was recorded in homicides in general to 89 incidents per year, domestic homicides skyrocketed to 34 cases, reaching the highest annual number ever nationally recorded. On average, domestic homicides account for 18.2% of all homicides in Greece. In 2021, however, this percentage rose to 38.2%. The number of male victims of domestic homicide has declined over the years, with a further decline in 2021, in stark contrast to the number of women escalating over time and even more sharply in 2021. The proportion of female victims of domestic homicides in Greece was fourfold higher on average. The fact that cases of domestic homicide and femicide have received a lot of media attention, the recent Greek financial crisis, as well as increased alcohol and drug consumption due to the COVID-19 pandemic constitute possible aggravating factors.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9193905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Role of forensic medicine in addressing the war crimes: Perspective from Russia-Ukraine conflict during the COVID-19 pandemic.","authors":"Andrea Cioffi,&nbsp;Camilla Cecannecchia","doi":"10.1177/00258024221125135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221125135","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The International Criminal Court has recently opened an investigation into the international crimes committed on Ukrainian territory. The ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war is a tragic opportunity for a necessary critical and scientific reading of the Rome Statute. In our work, we aim to critically analyse the contents of the International Criminal Court's Rome Statute, with particular attention to the definition and listing of war crimes. Our objective is to assess whether the content of the Rome Statute and the Geneva Convention is useful to provide a correct and complete orientation of the medico-legal work in the context of war. We believe, in fact, that the forensic pathologists, and forensic experts in general, are the only professional figures specialised in providing scientific evidence of crimes compatible with war crimes. Their timely intervention and the standardisation of their work - in association with a review of the deficient content found in the Rome Statute - is essential in order to allow the prosecution of international crimes, already potentially undermined by the slowdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic that is the backdrop to the current conflict.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9465054/pdf/10.1177_00258024221125135.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9194479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Health implications of the UK's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda: Evidence from medico-legal reports.","authors":"Idel Hanley","doi":"10.1177/00258024221138740","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221138740","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9618929","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Scene of death investigation in apparent suicidal deaths in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.","authors":"Karen E van den Hondel,&nbsp;Lissy Hoogenboom,&nbsp;Mirella de Heer,&nbsp;Tina Dorn,&nbsp;Manon Ceelen,&nbsp;Udo Reijnders","doi":"10.1177/00258024221112557","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221112557","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Guidelines from the Netherlands describe that unnatural deaths should be investigated by a forensic physician and Crime Scene Technicians, but this is not always the case. In this study, we aimed to determine what predicts the non-attendance of the Crime Scene Technicians at the scene of the death of suicides in the police region in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Data of 315 suicides (2016-2017) that have been externally examined by forensic physicians and reports from the Crime Scene Technicians were analysed. Statistical analysis was performed to determine the factors predicting the involvement of the Crime Scene Technicians at the scene of death. The Crime Scene Technicians were not attending in 23% (<i>n</i> = 72) cases, and over half of these cases were not found in the registration system of the Crime Scene Technicians. About some the Crime Scene Technicians was not informed. Predictors of the non-attendance of the Crime Scene Technicians were suicide by poisoning, the individual was found by an acquaintance or family, a history of suicide attempts and examination of the deceased in the hospital. In this study, we observed that the Crime Scene Technicians were sometimes not attending the investigation of apparent suicides. More research on this topic should be done to investigate the value of the presence of the Crime Scene Technicians at the scene before concluding that non-attendance of Crime Scene Technicians on-site influences the quality of the scene of death investigation and corresponding conclusions. Since 2017, several quality improvements were made, but an (inter)national conjoint protocol for uniform and structural suicide investigation could secure the quality of the scene of death investigation of suicides and would provide information useful for evaluation.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9563647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Work-related and non-work-related fatal road accidents: Assessment of psychoactive substance use in commuting.","authors":"Alberto Blandino,&nbsp;Stefano Tambuzzi,&nbsp;Rosy Cotroneo,&nbsp;Domenico Di Candia,&nbsp;Alessio Battistini,&nbsp;Gaia Giordano,&nbsp;Umberto Genovese,&nbsp;Riccardo Zoja","doi":"10.1177/00258024221118415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258024221118415","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Commuting road traffic collisions (RTCs) are one of the main causes of occupational death worldwide, including Italy. Among the prominent yet relatively understudied personal risk factors in the subpopulation of workers, there is the use of psychoactive substances. Since the phenomenon of driving under alcohol and drugs effects in the commuter sub-population has so far been poorly studied, we carried out a study by comparing results obtained from the analysis of commuters and non-commuters. The percentage of commuting RTCs victims was 10.4% out of all the RTCs. Commuter victims were mostly men, 51-60 years-old, motorcyclists (32.1%) or car drivers (28.6%), employees, deceased during Fridays and Saturdays, in the afternoon (35.7%) and in the evening (32.1%). It was possible to perform toxicological analyses in 60.7% of commuter cases: approximately 40% tested positive, always and only for ethanol (median Blood Alcohol Concentration, BAC, of about 1.03 g/L). Values above the legal limit were observed in 23.5% of the toxicological samples analyzed from commuter accidents. Our findings contribute to bridging the gap in knowledge in the area of RTCs and commuting and emphasize the importance of carrying out toxicological investigations, with possible repercussions on both insurance issues and public health strategies, which are relevant for analyzing the phenomenon structurally.</p>","PeriodicalId":18484,"journal":{"name":"Medicine, Science and the Law","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9200476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}