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From Deference To Indifference: Judicial Review Of The Scope Of Public Health Authority During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Wendy E. Parmet
From Deference To Indifference: Judicial Review Of The Scope Of Public Health Authority During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Wendy E. Parmet
Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy
For most of American history, courts have granted public health officials significant deference in construing the scope of their own authority. This changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the federal courts, where deference was replaced with skepticism as courts used the major questions doctrine to narrow the scope of public health powers. This Article examines this development and considers its implications for public health. Part II begins by recounting the long history of judicial deference to officials’ determination of the scope of their public health powers. Part III notes some of the problems with such deference and the pre-pandemic …
Authority To Improve Or Harm Health: The Public Health Front In A Decades-Long Battle Over Governmental Powers, Sabrina Adler, Sara Bartel, Heather Wong
Authority To Improve Or Harm Health: The Public Health Front In A Decades-Long Battle Over Governmental Powers, Sabrina Adler, Sara Bartel, Heather Wong
Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy
Backlash to local, state, and federal responses to combat COVID-19 has resulted in a small but vocal cohort of legislatures and courts trying to change long-settled and foundational principles of public health decision-making. They have shifted authority away from experts and local decision-makers, limiting emergency response in ways that also impact day-to-day public health efforts. Considering some examples of other recent preemption efforts, it is clear that COVID-era backlash is part of a longer-term deregulatory agenda, often framed as an effort to keep “big government” out of people’s lives and to preserve individual freedoms. However, the impact of such deregulation …
Doing More With Less: State Public Health Emergency Powers Post-Pandemic, Kelly J. Deere
Doing More With Less: State Public Health Emergency Powers Post-Pandemic, Kelly J. Deere
Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy
Three years after COVID-19 arrived in the United States, many governors and public health officials are equipped with fewer—not more—public health emergency powers than at the start of the pandemic. This may seem counterintuitive, considering that this virus has killed more than 1.1 million Americans and counting. While public health emergency powers were stripped on the federal, state, and local level, this loss is most acutely felt at the state executive level. Some state legislatures passed laws banning state and local governments from implementing a mask or vaccine mandate, while others amended their state emergency disaster statutes to limit the …
What Is A Public Health Lawyer Today? Acting For, Against, And Beyond Public Health, Scott Burris
What Is A Public Health Lawyer Today? Acting For, Against, And Beyond Public Health, Scott Burris
Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy
Health in America is not looking good. Unique among countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the basic measure of national health—life expectancy—was declining even before COVID-19. Public health, both as a system of institutions and as a profession working to promote longer and healthier lives, is also struggling. The normal insularity of the field’s professional culture—including a lack of legal competency—helped undermine the response to COVID-19, which was dismal by any measure. At this difficult time, this Article considers three different ways public health lawyers can make a contribution to public health as a goal and as …