In times of situational therapeutic impasse, health care professionals (HCPs) are under pressure to conduct off-label, unlicensed and compassionate drug use—generally summarized under the term non-licensed drug use (NDU). Liability, contractual and penal risks pose a problem when treating a patient in a non-licensed way. There is a knowledge gap about institutional and governmental methods to resolve these problems. Different countries have developed strategies to manage NDU. Vanessa Platé gives a comprehensive overview of practices Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Japan, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the transnational E.U. A must-read for everyone interested in the discussion on how to administer the best treatment, especially regarding early access to yet unapproved treatments.

Considering the Patient in Pediatric Drug Development: How Good Intentions Turned into Harm addresses a fundamental challenge in drug development and healthcare for young patients. In clinical trials and clinical practice, the term "children" is used ambiguously to confer physiological characteristics to a chronological age limit, which in reality does not exist. This book outlines why the United States (US) and European Union's (EU) regulatory authorities, pediatric academia, and the pharmaceutical industry demand, support and perform pediatric drug studies, along with the key flaws of this demand that blurs the different administrative and physiological meanings of the term "child." In addition, the book covers why most pediatric regulatory studies lack medical sense and many even harm young patients and the conflicts of interest behind pediatric drug studies. It includes relevant information about the maturation of the human body regarding absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of food and drugs as well as key differences between newborns, infants, older children and adolescents. - Explains relevant information about the maturation of the human body regarding absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of food and drugs, including key differences between newborns, infants, older children and adolescents - Discusses historical roots of separate drug approval in officially labeled "children" and conflicts of interest in performing and publishing "pediatric" research - Helps to decipher justifications for pediatric studies to help people navigate the relevance of the information

With the emergence of effective drugs and observed drug toxicities in babies, two mantras emerged: that children are therapeutic orphans, and that children are not small adults. US and EU laws demand pediatric studies as a condition for the approval of new drugs in adults. This is called “Pediatric Drug Development” (PDD). Although apparently reasonable, there are catches. Children are vulnerable at birth, but they grow and become bodily mature with puberty, well before coming of age. Minors are not another species. The 18th birthday, an administrative/ legal limit, does not correspond to a physiological change. Drugs treat the body, not the legal status. PDD results in pointless studies in bodily mature adolescents, and in exaggerated studies in younger minors. An originally well-intentioned concept results in thousands of questionable studies worldwide. This book draws attention to conflicts of interest and ethical dilemmas of PDD and questions its applicability for adolescents and minors that are no longer babies.

Intellectually Impaired People: The Ongoing Battle addresses challenges against the background of history, changing societal environments, and current intellectual approaches and attitudes toward persons with disabilities. The book discusses national and international conventions, societal attitudes, sheltered workshops, the right of intellectually impaired persons for self-responsibility and its limitations, and the place of mentally impaired persons in the public image. Additionally, the book attempts to capture the forces that drive the changes of our conceptual frameworks. The US Tuskegee study which withheld antibiotics from black men with syphilis was not ended by scientific criticism but by a courageous man, press reports, and a changed social perception. The non-hiding of handicapped children is not the result of government orders, there are many non-resolvable dilemmas and tension between supporting, understanding, and patronizing a complex situation with many potential future avenues. - Recognizes how contradictory feelings and attitudes toward impaired persons have a complex historical background - Sheds light on society and our institutions that deal with disabled people and the limitations of an isolated medical approach - Covers national and international conventions of mentally impaired persons