Law Commons^™

Trade Secret Fair Use, Deepa Varadarajan

Fordham Law Review

Trade secret law arose to help companies protect confidential information (e.g., the Coca-Cola formula) from competitors seeking to copy their innovative efforts. But companies increasingly use trade secret law to block a wide swath of information from the scrutinizing eyes of consumers, public watchdog groups, and potential improvers. Companies can do this, in part, because trade secret law lacks clear limiting doctrines that consider the social benefits of unauthorized use. For example, trade secret law makes no allowance for the departing employee that uses proprietary information to create a substantially improved product or disclose public health risks.

This Article argues …

The 2009 H1n1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Reconciling Goals Of Patents And Public Health Initiatives, Michelle Kaplan

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Engaging The Debate: Reform Vs. More Of The Same, Kevin B. Zeese

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Essay dispels common myths put forward by drug war advocates and describes more effective alternatives available than present policy contemplates. We all want to prevent adolescent drug abuse, protect the health and safety of the community, deny drug profits to terrorists and other criminals, and develop a drug policy that works and is based on our common humanity, as well as on research and reality, rather than myth and rhetoric. The essential paradigm shift that needs to occur is to move away from a policy dominated by law enforcement . . . and toward a policy based on public …

Social Risk And The Transformation Of Public Health Law: Lessons From The Plague Years, Elizabeth B. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was the wake-up call that disturbed America from its mid-twentieth century slumber concerning the dangers of communicable diseases. Until AIDS was identified in 1981, most Americans felt largely impervious to health threats posed by viruses or bacteria. Polio, smallpox, and tuberculosis had been brought under control by the "magic bullets" of antibiotics and vaccines." We felt more susceptible to the ravages of cancer or the debilitation of heart disease. But, over the last twenty years, the (re)emergence of serious or life-threatening microbial- based conditions such as Ebola, hantavirus, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, and even …

Testing For Genetic Traits: The Need For A New Legal Doctrine Of Informed Consent , Elizabeth B. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

Innovative medical technology has made it possible to test whether you are at increased risk for certain types of cancer. The mere processing of a vial of blood can reveal whether you have a genetic predisposition to develop breast, ovarian, or prostate cancer, or other life-threatening conditions. The Human Genome Project, an international endeavor seeking to map our genetic structures, has facilitated this increasing ability to test for genetic flaws. It is expected that as the human genetic map is filled in, and as flaws in our fundamental building blocks are identified, there will be a concomitant drive to test …

Why Mandatory Hiv Testing Of Pregnant Women And Newborns Must Fail: A Legal, Historical, And Public Policy Analysis Special Issue: Mandatory Hiv Testing Of Newborns And Their Mothers, Elizabeth B. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

The debate surrounding mandatory HIV testing of newborns and pregnant women requires an understanding of the historical context of women in the epidemic. Although the epidemic first was recognized in gay men in 1981, anecdotal reports reveal that women already were dying from what seems to have been HIV-related symptomatology. Indeed, in Gena Corea's book, The Invisible Epidemic, we learn that, as early as 1981, not insignificant numbers of drug-using and former drug-using women were falling ill and not recovering from conditions that normally are not fatal, including bacterial pneumonia. Yet, because we did not necessarily expect these populations to …

Hiv And The Need For A Voluntarist Approach, David A. Hansell, Esq.

Fordham Urban Law Journal

After a decade of fighting AIDS, the public health community has come to recognize that strategies to combat the infection must be premised on voluntarism and not on coercion. Attempts to combat AIDS with coercive public health strategies stem from a desire to force AIDS into an ill-fitting traditional disease-response framework, overlooking the differences between HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, including the limitations in available treatment modalities for HIV. A return to such a cramped, narrowly-medicalized view of the AIDS epidemic has enormous social implications and a coercive strategy would frustrate efforts to stem the spread of the disease. …

Aids Law: Impact Of Aids On American Schools And Prisons, The , Elizabeth B. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

The American public largely has responded with fear and hostility rather than with knowledge and compassion to the presence of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome ("AIDS") in society. Although our reactions are changing as we learn more about the syndrome and its causitive virus, some people continue to characterize AIDS as a well-deserved punishment of those groups most often afflicted with AIDS: gay men and intravenous drug users. Many people also persist in their erroneous beliefs that AIDS can be spread through casual contact. Although much remains to be learned about AIDS, there already exists an abundance of information upon which …

Alternatives For Regulatory Control Of Acid Rain In The Northeastern United States, Deborah J. Hartman

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article will define regulatory options for curbing acid rain the northeastern United States. The first section will discuss those provisions of the Clean Air Act which address interstate air pollution. The second section examines the prominent proposals for amending the Clean Air Act to provide for acid rain regulation as enunciated by legislators, commentators and environmental organizations. The third section presents a two-pronged recommendation for broadening the Clean Air Act to prevent and control acid rain.