Law Commons^™

Hacking Hipaa: "Best Practices" For Avoiding Oversight In The Sale Of Your Identifiable Medical Information, Riyad A. Omar

Journal of Law and Health

In light of the confusion invited by applying the label "de-identified" to information that can be used to identify patients, it is paramount that regulators, compliance professionals, patient advocates and the general public understand the significant differences between the standards applied by HIPAA and those applied by permissive "de-identification guidelines." This Article discusses those differences in detail. The discussion proceeds in four Parts. Part II (HIPAA’s Heartbeat: Why HIPAA Protects Identifiable Patient Information) examines Congress’s motivations for defining individually identifiable health information broadly, which included to stop the harms patients endured prior to 1996 arising from the commercial sale of …

Should A Physician Apologize For A Medical Mistake? – The Controversy Over The Effectiveness Of Apology Law Statutes, Samuel D. Hodge, Jr.

Cleveland State Law Review

There are two approaches that health care providers can pursue in handling a medical error. Is it better for a physician not to admit a mistake and aggressively defend the claim or apologize and try to amicably resolve the matter? There has been a growing movement for physicians to offer words of sympathy or to apologize for a medical mistake as a way of minimizing the impact of a medical error and reducing the chances of a malpractice claim. There are a number of benefits to this approach but critics maintain that an apology is a useless gesture with an …

The Public Health Demand For Revoking Non-Medical Exemptions To Compulsory Vaccination Statutes, Emma Tomsick

Journal of Law and Health

In 2019, the United States saw the single largest outbreak of measles in recent history. The measles crisis has prompted state legislative bodies to face a seemingly impossible dilemma: eliminate both religious and philosophical exemptions to mandatory school vaccination statutes or sit by idly and allow measles to continue to run its course. As of June 2019, five states have neither religious nor philosophical exemptions to their mandatory vaccination statutes. This Note argues that states should remove all religious and philosophical exemptions to compulsory vaccination statutes. The 2019 measles outbreak demonstrates that the anti-vaccination movement poses a legitimate risk to …

Homeless And Helpless: How The United States Has Failed Those With Severe And Persistent Mental Illness, Ashley Gorfido

Journal of Law and Health

The United States has failed its citizens who suffer from severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). Homelessness is one of the most obvious manifestations of this failure. The combination of a lack of effective treatment, inadequate entitlement programs such as Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and subpar housing options form systemic barriers that prevent people suffering from mental illness from being able to obtain adequate housing. Cultural beliefs within the United States regarding who is homeless and what homelessness means also play a significant role in the development of positively impactful social welfare programs.

Part II of this Note reviews …

International Law And The Legalization Of Abortion In Northern Ireland, Emily Uterhark

Journal of Law and Health

On July 24, 2019, the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed an act that included an amendment requiring Northern Ireland to implement recommendations from the Committee on the Elimination on Discrimination Against Women. The amendment required Northern Ireland to repeal the 1861 abortion act and requires the decriminalization of abortion. The law went into effect on October 22, 2019, since the Northern Ireland power-sharing government (Stormont) did not reconvene before October 21, 2019. Since the law did go into effect, it gave women the right to obtain abortions under the CEDAW recommendations; however, when the Northern Irish government (Stormont) reconvenes, …

Striving For The Mountaintop: The Elimination Of Health Disparities In A Time Of Retrenchment (1968-2018), Gwendolyn R. Majette

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Health disparities in the United States are real. People of color are the adverse beneficiaries of these facts-lower life expectancy, higher rates of morbidity and mortality, and poorer health outcomes in general. This Article analyzes the laws and policies that improve and create barriers to improving people of color's health since the death of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. The Article builds upon my earlier scholarship and considers the effectiveness of the "PPACA Framework to Eliminate Health Disparities" since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was enacted in 2010.

The Article also explores the impact of …

Petitioners' Reply Memorandum In Support Of Their Emergency Petetion For A Writ Of Habeas Corpus, Joseph Mead, David J. Carey, Freda J. Levenson, David A. Singleton, Mark A. Vander Laan, Michael L. Zuckerman

Law Faculty Briefs and Court Documents

In the roughly 120 hours since Petitioners filed their emergency petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the death toll at Elkton has doubled, and the number of BOP-confirmed COVID-19 cases among prisoners has tripled. About three dozen corrections staff have tested positive for the virus, a number that has also tripled since this case was filed. Elkton now accounts for more than one-third of all prisoner deaths from COVID-19 in federal prisons nationwide, and over half of the COVID-19 deaths in Columbiana County, making it one of the deadliest places a person can live in the current pandemic. According …

Emergency Petition For Writ Of Habeas Corpus, Injunctive, And Declaratory Relief - Class Action, Joseph Mead, David J. Carey, Mark A. Vander Laan, Freda Levenson, David Singleton

Law Faculty Briefs and Court Documents

As a tragic combination of infectious and deadly, COVID-19 poses a once-in-a-lifetime threat on a worldwide scale. Every state and territory in the United States has now been impacted, with nearly half a million cases and over 20,000 deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Even under ordinary conditions, each person who contracts this illness can be expected to infect between 2 and 3 others.

Cramped, overcrowded prisons amplify this threat. With thousands of people literally stacked on top of each other and unable to move around without rubbing shoulders, such environments are fundamentally incompatible with …

Let She Who Has The Womb Speak: Regulating The Use Of Human Oocyte Cryopreservation To The Detriment Of Older Women, Browne C. Lewis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article is divided into three parts. Part I examines the arguments in favor of banning human oocyte cryopreservation. Part II explores the reasons some opponents of human oocyte cryopreservation might give to support restrictions on the use of frozen oocytes. Part III analyzes the possible ethical and legal challenges that may arise in the event that the government seeks to ban the use of frozen oocytes or restrict the use of frozen oocytes based solely on the age of the potential mother.