Journal of Nanomedicine & Nanotechnology

Abstract

Legal and Ethical Aspects of Wireless Health

Atalla K, Chaudhary A, Eshaghian-Wilner MM, Gupta A, Mehta R, Nayak A, Ravicz K, Shiroma B and Trivedi P

Nanomedicine is a revolutionary field with the potential to vastly improve healthcare worldwide. Despite these benefits, the revolutionary rather than evolutionary nature of these new medicines raises unforeseen problems relating to ethics, privacy, intellectual property, and regulatory law. Ethical issues include the risks posed to users of a drug during the research and development stage, unequal distribution of new medicines, and the possibility for genetic self-enhancement. Privacy issues involve laws that do not adequately protect people’s privacy and the possibility for genetic discrimination based on increasingly accessible genetic information. Intellectual property issues are primarily concerned with the balance between protecting nanomedicine-related intellectual property rights and the desire to encourage future innovation. Nanomedicine is particularly difficult to protect from an intellectual property perspective due to bureaucratic distinctions, difficult analysis against prior art, and the complexity of the technology itself. However, the industry as well as the courts may not be enough to properly regulate this nascent field. Given the remarkable potential of nanomedicine to improve global healthcare as well as the great risks that come with new developments in the field, it is important for researchers, industry, legislatures, and the public to work together to ensure the impending medical revolution keeps people safe and changes our lives for the better.