United States — Maine Act or statute

United States — Maine legislation

Maine Revised Statutes, Title 22, § 2671: Definitions, 2015

This section defines key terms used in the chapter, including eligible patient, investigational drug or device, terminal illness, treating physician, and written informed consent.

clinical trialsinformed consentmedical treatment

Professional statute overview

Enactment structure, operative effect and source provenance

Official source

01

Purpose and legislative effect

“This section defines key terms used in the chapter, including eligible patient, investigational drug or device, terminal illness, treating physician, and written informed consent.”

Use this record to locate individual provisions, understand the instrument’s recorded structure, and move from a research summary to the exact source text.

02

How the instrument operates

  1. 01

    Start with the recorded version

    Enacted 2015 · Source version 1 Oct 2025. The date shown identifies this source expression and should not be treated as proof that no later change exists.

  2. 02

    Locate the controlling provision

    Use the provision map, part headings and full-text filter to move from the broad subject to the exact legal language.

  3. 03

    Read conditions and exceptions together

    Keep subsections, definitions, provisos and cross-references in context before drawing a legal conclusion.

  4. 04

    Verify currency and official wording

    Confirm later legislation, commencement notices and corrections with the official publisher before advice, filing or reliance.

03

Research entry points

Selected provisions across the instrument. Open any row to continue with the exact stored text.

Definitions

This section defines key terms used in the chapter, including eligible patient, investigational drug or device, terminal illness, treating physician, and written informed consent.

Section 2671

04

Source and current-law status

Source record view

Source record from legislature.maine.gov · Enacted 2015 · Source version 1 Oct 2025

Verify current force

The source record does not state a definitive current-law status. Check the official publisher and later amendments before relying on this text.

Source-indexed provision map

Sections and provisions

Search by section, heading, part or exact legal wording. Every result remains linked to the stored source record.

Showing 1 of 1 provisions

Interpretation
§ 2671DefinitionsInterpretation

This section defines key terms used in the chapter, including eligible patient, investigational drug or device, terminal illness, treating physician, and written informed consent.

As used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise indicates, the following terms have the following meanings. [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] 1. Eligible patient. "Eligible patient" means a person who has: A. Received a diagnosis of a terminal illness for which no standard treatment is effective and the diagnosis has been attested by the person's treating physician; [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] B. Considered all treatment options approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration; [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] C. Not been accepted into a clinical trial within one week of completion of the clinical trial application process; [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] D. Received a recommendation from the person's treating physician for an investigational drug, biological product or device; [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] E. Given written, informed consent for the use of the investigational drug, biological product or device under paragraph D or, if the person is a minor or lacks the mental capacity to provide informed consent, whose parent or legal guardian has given written, informed consent on the person's behalf; and [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] F. Received documentation from the person's treating physician that the person meets all of the conditions in this subsection. [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] 2. Investigational drug, biological product or device. "Investigational drug, biological product or device" means a drug, biological product or device that has successfully completed Phase I of a United States Food and Drug Administration-approved clinical trial but has not yet been approved for general use by the United States Food and Drug Administration and remains under investigation in such a clinical trial. [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] 3. Terminal illness. "Terminal illness" means a disease or condition that, without life-sustaining measures, will soon result in death or in a state of permanent unconsciousness from which recovery is unlikely. [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] 4. Treating physician. "Treating physician" means a physician who has primary responsibility for the care of a patient and treatment of that patient's terminal illness. [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] 5. Written, informed consent. "Written, informed consent" means a written document signed by a patient or, if the patient is a minor or lacks the mental capacity to provide informed consent, a parent or legal guardian of the patient. The document must be attested by the patient's treating physician and a witness and include the following information: A. An explanation of the United States Food and Drug Administration-approved treatments for the disease or condition from which the patient suffers; [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] B. A statement that the patient concurs with the patient's treating physician that all United States Food and Drug Administration-approved and standard treatments for the disease or condition from which the patient suffers are unlikely to prolong the patient's life; [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] C. Clear identification of the specific investigational drug, biological product or device that the patient is seeking to use; and [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] D. A description of the best and worst potential outcomes of using the investigational drug, biological product or device identified under paragraph C with a description of the most likely outcome. The description must include the possibility that new, unanticipated, different or worse symptoms might result and that death could be hastened by the proposed treatment. The description must be based on the treating physician's knowledge of the proposed treatment in conjunction with the treating physician's knowledge of the patient's overall medical condition. [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).] [PL 2015, c. 418, §1 (NEW).]
Section 2671Verify source

Legislative relationships

0 referenced instruments

Names are derived from the stored provision headings and citation-enrichment layer. Treat this as a research index and verify each relationship against the source text.

No structured legislative relationships were detected

The statute remains fully searchable by provision. Consult the source text for amendments and cross-references that have not yet been indexed.

Recorded versions and source checkpoint

1 version available in this collection

Current-law checkpoint
  • 1 Oct 2025 · currentEnglish

Source-linked research

Ask AI about this statute

The overview, provisions, and source records above are public. Continue in a separate conversation with this statute’s jurisdiction and source version attached.

About this LexChat collection

Statute information is organised from identified legislative sources for professional research. Corrections can be reported to hello@esheria.ai.