Law Commons^™

J Mich Dent Assoc October 2021

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

Every month, The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association brings news, information, and features about Michigan dentistry to our state's oral health community and the MDA's 6,200+ members. No publication reaches more Michigan dentists!

In this issue, the reader will find the following original content:

• A cover story, “Welcoming Colleagues from Different Practice Models”.
• A feature article from the Journal’s DEI series, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Perspectives from an LGBTQ Dentist”.
• A feature article, “Congratulations, 2021 MDA Life Members!”.
• News you need, Editorial and regular department articles on MDA Foundation activities, Dentistry and the Law, Staff Matters, and component news. …

Immunization Governance Challenges Exposed By Covid-19: Missing Standards In Vacccine Surveillance And Adverse Events Following Immunization (Aefis), Shawn H.E. Harmon, David Faour

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Introduction: The Future Of Global Health Governance, Elizabeth Weeks, Anish Patel

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Liberty And Health, Frank Griffin

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Liberty is the essence of human nature and is necessary for optimal health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government placed unprecedented restrictions on personal liberty in the name of public health, confining millions of Americans to their homes, forcing hundreds of thousands of businesses and parks to close, shuttering abortion clinics, heavily regulating churches, monitoring gatherings in private homes, restricting interstate travel, and shifting disease burdens onto protected populations. Personal liberty is sustenance for individual health. Medical principles of patient autonomy, patient privacy, and social justice are closely related to legal concepts of personal liberty, the liberty of constitutional privacy, …

Effects Of Political Versus Expert Messaging On Vaccination Intentions Of Trump Voters, Christopher Robertson, Keith Bentele, Beth Meyerson, Alexander Wood, Jacqueline Salwa

Faculty Scholarship

To increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake in resistant populations, such as Republicans, focus groups suggest that it is best to de-politicize the issue by sharing five facts from a public health expert. Yet polls suggest that Trump voters trust former President Donald Trump for medical advice more than they trust experts. We conducted an online, randomized, national experiment among 387 non-vaccinated Trump voters, using two brief audiovisual artifacts from Spring 2021, either facts delivered by an expert versus political claims delivered by President Trump. Relative to the control group, Trump voters who viewed the video of Trump endorsing the vaccine were …

Standard Racism: Trying To Use “Crisis Standards Of Care” In The Covid-19 Pandemic, George J. Annas, Sondra S. Crosby

Faculty Scholarship

Lowering the standard of care in a pandemic is a recipe for inferior care and discrimination. Wealthy white patients will continue to get “standard of care” medicine, while the poor and racial minorities (especially black and brown people) will get what is openly described as substandard care rationalized by the assertion that substandard care is all that we can deliver to them in a crisis. (IOM Citation2009) Paul Farmer’s experience in responding to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a shocking, if extreme, example of how dangerous to patients this practice is. White patients were treated with the …

Vaccination Evasion: Legislating A Solution Through A Revised Vaccinate All Children Act Of 2019, Sophia C. Aguilar

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

How To Build More Equitable Vaccine Distribution Technology, Laura M. Moy, Yael Cannon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The COVID-19 pandemic and the distribution of vaccines that promise to bring it to an end have spotlighted inequities in our nation’s healthcare system. But the vaccine distribution problem illustrates a peculiar fact of our digital era: just how hard it is to ensure equitable delivery of services via the internet. This is especially the case when distributing a scarce critical resource as quickly as possible on a massive scale.

In this Brookings Institution article, Professors Laura Moy and Yael Cannon argue that digital infrastructure is a critical determinant of health, and call for the restructuring of online vaccine appointment …

How The Biden Administration Can Reinvigorate Global Health Security, Institutions, And Governance, Lawrence O. Gostin, Eric A. Friedman, Sarah A. Wetter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The tragedy of COVID-19 can be fertile soil for deep structural reforms. President Biden can both bolster the immediate responses to COVID-19 and its vast ramifications, and spearhead lasting changes to create a healthier and safer world, from which the United States would richly benefit. The agenda we propose for President Biden is ambitious, yet US. bold leadership on global health will benefit all people, including Americans, and is in the U.S. national interest

Along with responding to the COVID-19 domestically, the Biden administration should enhance U.S.-initiatives home, expanding the Global Health Security Agenda and restoring and reinvigorating the PREDICT …

Addressing Public Health’S Failings During Year One Of Covid-19, George J. Annas, Sandro Galea

Faculty Scholarship

By almost any measure, public health fell short during 2020. In retrospect, the list of what public health professionals, including federal and state public health officials, public health practitioners, and academics, could have done better is easy to articulate, and has already been the subject of angry books about the disasterous responses to the pandemic in Europe and the US [1,2]. It falls to all of us to pause, reflect, and ask: how do we move forward? We have five suggestions.

Racism, Health Equity, And Crisis Standards Of Care In The Covid-19 Pandemic, Charlene Galarneau, Ruqaiijah Yearby

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

Long-standing and deeply embedded institutional racism, notably anti-Black racism in U.S. health care, has provided a solid footing for the health inequities by race evident in the COVID-19 pandemic. Inequities in susceptibility, exposure, infection, hospitalization, and treatment reflect and reinforce this racism and cause incalculable and preventable suffering in and loss of Black lives. This Article identifies multiple expressions of racism evident in the crisis standards of care (CSC) created by states and health care institutions to guide the ethical allocation of scarce critical care resources including ventilators. Contextualized within the broad landscape of health inequities pre-COVID-19 as well as …

Policies Of Exclusion: The Impact Of Covid-19 On People With Disabilities, Amanda M. Caleb, Stacy Gallin

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on marginalized groups and has amplified the social and health inequalities in society, particularly for people with disabilities (PwDs), who are at higher risk of dying from the coronavirus. As such, it is vital that policies and practices include and protect PwDs, yet that is not the case across the United States. In this article, we examine policies related to COVID-19 that have further othered PwDs and that have created practical and theoretical inequity. In looking at public health strategies that are meant to protect the public, we argue that measures such as social …

Disability, Access, And Other Considerations: A Title Ii Framework For A Pandemic Crisis Response (Covid-19), George M. Powers, Lex Frieden, Vinh Nguyen

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

This Article examines how plans for emergency medical rationing during the COVID-19 pandemic may discriminate against those with disabilities. More specifically, this Article lays out the obligation of state and local governments under Title II of the ADA in creating and enforcing equitable and fair rationing plans during this COVID-19 crisis. For example, ventilator shortages are a common occurrence. The ADA, similar to other civil rights laws, operates so that a person with a disability is not denied a ventilator or other resources because of his/her disability. One reason that a person with a disability may be denied limited medical …

Covid-19, Doctors, And The “Realities Of Prison Administration” Part I: The Realities Of A Subject Matter Expert, Fred Rottnek

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

COVID-19 is still novel. As scientists continue racing to characterize the virus and its mutations, promote behavioral change, and optimize treatment and vaccination strategies, public policy makers shift their attention from one high priority population to the next. These spotlights have converged on one truism of the pandemic: COVID-19 infection, and all its sequelae, have magnified long-established social and structural inequities in U.S. institutions—including practices in jails, prisons, and detention facilities. While these facilities were recognized as early incubators of the virus, the response of the facility administrators and local leaders were at best uneven and at worst nonexistent. When …

Retaining Medicaid Covid-19 Changes To Support Community Living, Elizabeth Edwards, David Machledt, Jennifer Lav

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

The impact of COVID-19 on people with disabilities in institutional settings, like nursing facilities, has garnered significant attention. But people receiving comparable services in the community have also been affected significantly. States used several emergency authorities in efforts to facilitate access to and stabilize these Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS), including behavioral health services. Although states made different policy choices within those authorities, many states expanded the provider pool, increased HCBS provider rates, decreased onerous utilization controls and other barriers to care, expanded telehealth, and added new community-based services. These state policy responses have resulted in new services or …

Covid-19, Courts, And The “Realities Of Prison Administration” Part Ii: The Realities Of Litigation, Chad Flanders

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

Lawsuits challenging prisons and jails for not doing enough to stop the spread of COVID-19 among inmates have faced mixed results in the courts: wins at the district court level are almost always followed by losses (in the form of stays of any orders to improve conditions) at the appeals court level or at the Supreme Court. This short Article tries to explain why this is happening and makes three comparisons between how district courts and appeals courts have analyzed these lawsuits. First, district courts and appeals courts tend to emphasize different facts in their decisions. District courts focus more …

Lessons Learned From Community-Driven Responsiveness During Covid-19, Amanda Harris, Brittini "Ree Belle" Gray, Ciearra Walker, Melinique Walls Castellanos

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

People of color are suffering and dying from COVID-19 at greater rates than the general population. Additionally, population-level health interventions can worsen health disparities by failing to reach already underserved populations. In response, PrepareSTL, a collaborative, community-led campaign, aims to reach communities of color in St. Louis with accessible information and resources to stop the spread of the coronavirus among the target audiences and help these communities survive the virus’s adverse social and economic impacts. This study (1) analyzes factors contributing to the success of PrepareSTL as a community-led and equity-centered response to COVID-19 and (2) identifies lessons from the …

Finding The Cluster: Balancing Privacy And Public Health Amid The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jessie L. Bekker

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

More than 800,000 Americans have died and more than fifty-seven million sickened since March 2020 from the COVID-19 virus and its highly contagious variants. Public health officials urged the public to mask up, socially distance, and stay home in order to curb the virus’ spread in the early months of the pandemic before a vaccine was approved. Meanwhile, those same officials blocked access to valuable information pinpointing areas of disease concentration—“hotspots”—which could have alerted members of the public of locations to avoid. Those officials generally—and usually incorrectly—cited the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) as grounds for …

The Urban Trauma Drama: The Intersecting Path Of Criminal Justice And Public Health Revealed During The Covid-19 Pandemic, José Felipé Anderson

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

Our society often operates under the delusion that more incarceration in urban areas will make us safer. Crowded cities and the problems for its inhabitants are not new. Those problems often fall more heavily on minority groups. Failed education, healthcare unavailability, and a lack of decent housing have made it difficult for cities to cope with addiction and crime. The COVID-19 pandemic has made the issues in the criminal system harder to ignore. Decline of major manufacturing jobs in cities like the steel and auto industries removed key opportunities for those seeking to overcome poverty and raise families. Debilitating riots …

A World Of Their Own: Illiberal Religious Communities Struggle To Comply With Covid-19 Public Health Regulations, Shai Stern

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The COVID-19 pandemic did not eliminate existing social tensions; rather, it at times intensified them. Thus, it is unsurprising that. the tension between the liberal state and illiberal religious communities likewise intensified, as those communities were late to comply with COVID-19 public health regulations issued by state authorities. This Article suggests that alongside the behavioral and psychological explanations for individual non-compliance, illiberal religious communities' late response to the COVID-19 threats stems out of these communities' unique characteristics and deeply held norms. It provides five explanations supporting this argument and argues that all result from the interventionist liberal-centric policies embraced by …

The Next Surges Are Here: What Can American Governments Lawfully Do In Response To The Ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic?, Jeff Thaler

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Privacy In The Age Of Contact Tracing: An Analysis Of Contact Tracing Apps In Different Statutory And Disease Frameworks, Christopher S. Yoo, Apratim Vidyarthi

All Faculty Scholarship

The Covid-19 pandemic is a historic pandemic that has affected the lives of virtually everyone on the globe. One approach to slowing the spread of the disease is to use contact tracing, facilitated by our internet-connected smartphones. Different nations and states have partnered to develop a variety of contact tracing apps that use different technologies and architectures.

This paper investigates how five contact tracing apps—Germany’s Corona-Warn-App, Israel’s HaMagen, North Dakota’s Care19 Diary and Alert apps, and India’s Aarogya Setu—fare in privacy-oriented statutory frameworks to understand the design choices and public health implications shaped by these statutes. The three statutes—the Health …

Race, Risk, And Personal Responsibility In The Response To Covid-19, Aziza Ahmed, Jason Jackson

Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 crisis has tragically revealed the depth of racial inequities in the United States. This Piece argues that the disproportion­ate impact of the pandemic on racial minorities is a symptom of a failing approach to public health, one that privileges individual behaviors over the structural conditions that generate vulnerability and inequitable health outcomes. Despite clear racial disparities in illness and deaths, the neoliberal ideology of personal responsibility shifts the onus for mitigation of risk away from the social and legal determinants of health and onto the individual. To understand how and why these disparate racial outcomes arise, this Piece …

The Need For A Strong And Stable Federal Public Health Agency Independent From Politicians, Jacqueline Salwa, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the precariousness of federal public health institutions in the United States, and how disastrously things can go when those institutions are undermined by political forces. Such institutions can be disbanded, underfunded, populated with incompetent political hacks, manipulated, or sidelined. As a field, public health in particular needs some political space, given that it requires deep scientific expertise and needs to communicate to the public clearly, reliably, and with authority to engender trust. Key public health agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in particular, should be buttressed against future political encroachment, …