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Letters |1 November 1994

Ethics Committees

Janet Fleetwood, PhD; Stephanie S. Unger, JD

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IN RESPONSE:
Miller and Mackler's letter illuminates the intent of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law regarding the authority of institutional ethics committees. Although we are encouraged that the Task Force did not mean to propose giving physicians “special or automatic immunity for following the advice of an ethics committee,” we remain concerned about the clarity of their 1992 document [1].
Appendix A of section 11, Bioethics review committees, part C, page 262, states: “Recommendations and advice by the bioethics review committee shall be advisory and nonbinding, except for committee approvals or disapprovals of the withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining treatment from an emancipated minor patient, from an adult patient without a surrogate, or from any patient who is neither terminally ill nor permanently unconscious.” We believe it fair to interpret this statement to mean that advice from a committee is binding when it involves foregoing treatment for the aforementioned patient categories. Our interpretation was echoed in an article in Hospital Ethics[2] that stated: “In cases involving life-sustaining treatment decisions, the proposed legislation would make the forgoing of such treatment subject to the review and approval of multidisciplinary institutional ethics committees”
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Fleetwood J, Unger SS. Ethics Committees. Ann Intern Med. ;121:725. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-121-9-199411010-00037

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Published: Ann Intern Med. 1994;121(9):725.

DOI: 10.7326/0003-4819-121-9-199411010-00037

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