After the Indiana HIV outbreak in 2015, Congress partially repealed the ban on needle exchange programs, providing funding for operations but not syringes.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(3):252-257. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.3.hlaw1-1603.
US immigration policy contravenes the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which all United Nations member nations have ratified except the United States. The convention recognizes that children need special assistance and legal protection and prohibits deprivation of liberty.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(1):E58-66. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.58.
Thirty states have exceptions to child-neglect laws that provide shelter from misdemeanor violations for parents who treat their children through prayer in accord with the beliefs of a recognized religion.
Conflicts between federal and state laws governing marijuana, lack of evidence about its efficacy as a treatment, and physicians' inability to predict or control dosage would all be aided by reclassification of the drug that would let clinical research go forward.
Though there are channels through which terminally ill patients can access some experimental drugs that have not yet received FDA approval for marketing to the public, in general those drugs must already be proven safe and effective.
The duty of forensic psychiatrists is to serve as objective experts to courts, but special circumstances in juvenile forensic evaluations and expectations about the patient-physician relationship may encourage confusion between the roles of forensic evaluator and treating psychiatrist.