Legal Aspects of Immunodiagnostics and Immunoprophylaxis of Certain Diseases
Introduction: the article analyzes one of the aspects of Russian and international experience in immunological diagnostics and immunological prophylaxis of certain diseases, namely application of procedures that may restrict the rights of citizens while ensuring public safety. This topic is becoming more and more controversial due to collision of public and private interests, so its study appears to be highly relevant. Purpose: to evaluate the legality and validity of restricting the rights of citizens as part of application of immunodiagnostics and immunoprophylaxis procedures, to formulate proposals on improving legal regulation covering the procedures themselves and the harm compensation procedures in case of postvaccinal complications – all based on the analysis of scientific information sources, legal acts, materials of law enforcement statistics, opinion polls, foreign experience. Methods: dialectical, formal-logical, functional, sociological and other general scientific methods of research; specific legal methods: comparative-legal and formal-legal. Results: the approaches to understanding immunodiagnostics and immunoprophylaxis procedures and their significance have been analyzed, the problematic aspects of legal regulation and law enforcement in this sphere, and also violations of legislation have been identified; the experience of compensating for harm caused by vaccination has been studied. Conclusions: in order to effectively achieve the goals of public health maintenance and boosting public confidence in the procedures of immunodiagnostics and immunoprophylaxis, and to ensure the rights of citizens, a set of measures is needed as follows: constant cooperation with civil society institutions that should go in parallel to the application of medical and pharmacological advances accompanied by the improvement of legal norms; control over the safety of drugs; budget financing of alternative diagnostic methods and additional examinations aimed at reducing the risk of harm to health and at identifying all the contraindications; maximum public awareness of all procedures and medications when obtaining voluntary informed consent; imposition of restrictions on persons who refused to undergo the procedures in strict accordance with the law and in proportion to the real danger to the public interest; additional training of medical staff; improvement and simplification of procedures for compensation for harm in the event of postvaccinal complications with the priority of non-judicial procedures; increase of the compensation size.