Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Avoiding Prolonged Dementia, Norman L. Cantor

Norman Cantor

הורות משפטית מן הדין ומן הצדק - Legal Parenthood - Law And Justice, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

The Overdose/Homicide Epidemic, Valena E. Beety

Georgia State University Law Review

This Article explores the lack of regulation of coroners, concerns within the forensic science community on the reliability of coroner determinations, and ultimately, how elected laypeople serving as coroners may influence the rise in drug-induced homicide prosecutions in the midst of the opioid epidemic.

This Article proposes that the manner of death determination contributes to overdoses being differently prosecuted; that coroners in rural counties are more likely to determine the manner of death for an illicit substance overdose is homicide; and that coroners are provided with insufficient training on interacting with the criminal justice system, particularly on overdose deaths. Death ...

For Whom The Bell (Equitably) Tolls: Erisa Compliance And Denial Of Benefits Notices Circuit Split, Sarah Smith

Akron Law Review

The circuit courts are split as to how a plan administrator of an ERISA-governed employee benefit plan must notify a claimant of a time limitation placed on a claimant’s ability to seek judicial review of an adverse benefit decision. Some courts indicate that inclusion of this time limitation in the Summary Plan Description is sufficient to notify a claimant. Other courts have held that the time period must specifically be included in adverse determination notices, which are documents notifying claimants of the denial of their claim and the right to judicial review. Much of the debate among courts concerns ...

From Guns That Do Not Shoot To Foreign Staplers: Has The Supreme Court’S Materiality Standard Under Escobar Provided Clarity For The Health Care Industry About Fraud Under The False Claims Act?, Deborah R. Farringer

Brooklyn Law Review

In June of 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in the case of Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, in order to resolve a circuit split regarding the viability of the “implied false certification” theory of liability under the False Claims Act (FCA). This article examines what has happened in the twelve months since the Escobar opinion by observing the reaction and subsequent arguments arising out of the Department of Justice and exploring the analyses of district courts and courts of appeals in trying to apply a new and more demanding materiality standard ...

How Liability Insurers Protect Patients And Improve Safety, Tom Baker, Charles Silver

Faculty Scholarship

Forty years after the publication of the first systematic study of adverse medical events, there is greater access to information about adverse medical events and increasingly widespread acceptance of the view that patient safety requires more than vigilance by well-intentioned medical professionals. In this essay, we describe some of the ways that medical liability insurance organizations contributed to this transformation, and we catalog the roles that those organizations play in promoting patient safety today. Whether liability insurance in fact discourages providers from improving safety or encourages them to protect patients from avoidable harms is an empirical question that a survey ...

Health Data And Privacy In The Digital Era, Lawrence O. Gostin, Sam F. Halabi, Kumanan Wilson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 2010, the social networking site Facebook launched a platform allowing private companies to request users’ permission to access personal data. Few users were aware of the platform, which was integrated into Facebook’s terms of service. In 2014, Cambridge Analytica, a UK-based political consulting firm, developed a data-harvesting app. That app prompted Facebook users to provide psychological profiles, including responses such as “I get upset easily” and “I have frequent mood-swings” as part of a “research project.”

The Facebook platform allowed users to share their friends’ data as well, enabling Cambridge Analytica to access tens of millions of personal ...

Dying To Be Fresh And Clean? Toxicants In Personal Care Products, The Impact On Cancer Risk, And Epigenetic Damage, Katherine Drabiak

Pace Environmental Law Review

The FDA does not conduct pre-market review of chemicals contained in cosmetics—which encompasses not only makeup but also numerous personal care products including shampoo, lotion, perfume, aftershave, and shaving cream. Every day, consumers use cosmetic products that contain a variety of synthetic ingredients, none of which the FDA has approved for safety but each of which are being ingested, absorbed, and inhaled into our bodies and accumulating in our tissue. Many of these products contain endocrine disrupting chemicals (“EDCs”), which emerging research links to an increased risk of cancer as well as immune and neurological dysfunction. This Article examines ...

Closing The Regulatory Gap For Synthetic Nicotine Products, Patricia J. Zettler, Natalie Hemmerich, Micah L. Berman

Boston College Law Review

In July 2017 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a new “comprehensive plan for tobacco and nicotine regulation.” This plan focuses on making cigarettes less addictive while facilitating the development of alternative, and less-harmful, nicotine-containing products. This approach holds promise, and the public health stakes could not be higher—smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, resulting in roughly 480,000 deaths per year. But a new consumer product is emerging that could upset the FDA’s plans for a well-balanced regulatory scheme: synthetic nicotine. Synthetic nicotine products currently fall into a regulatory ...

New Ebola Outbreak In Africa Is A Major Test For The Who, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

On May 8, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) notified the World Health Organization (WHO) of a confirmed outbreak of Ebola in Bikoro, on the shores of Lake Tumba in Équateur Province. Ebola in the DRC is not unexpected. The first-ever identified Ebola outbreak occurred in the DRC—then Zaire—in 1976. This is the ninth of DRC’s outbreaks, which until now have been confined mainly to rural areas. With high fatality rates, earlier outbreaks quickly burned out due to the natural firewall of remoteness.

Bikoro and a nearby village, Ikoko-Impenge, are rural, but on May 16, the WHO ...

Law & Health Care Newsletter

Law & Health Care Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Nfib V. Sebelius At 5, Nicole Huberfeld

University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

End Of Life And Autonomy: The Case For Relational Nudges In End-Of-Life Decision-Making Law And Policy, Megan S. Wright

Maryland Law Review

Autonomy is a central principle in many areas of health law. In the case of end-of-life decision-making law and policy, however, the principle of autonomy requires revision. On the whole, law conceptualizes autonomy at the end of life as an individual making private, personal decisions based solely on their interests and values, and independent of others. But ordinary people understand autonomous decisionmaking at the end of life differently, in a way that acknowledges the importance of their interpersonal relationships. Social science research has documented that strengthening relationships with others, sharing responsibility in the decision-making process with healthcare providers, and taking ...

Investment Spending And Gdp, Kevin Zaldivar

Celebration of Learning

This study's mission is to give a modern day analysis to investment spending and to provide insight to the degree of impact certain investments have on our GDP. This should interest local,state,and federal policy makers as well as anyone who practices their civic duty.

 The Roots And Branches Of The Medical-Legal Partnership Approach To Health: From Collegiality To Civil Rights To Health Equity, Joel Teitelbaum, Ellen Lawton

Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics

This Article traces the roots of the medical-legal partnership (MLP) approach

to health as a way of promoting the use of law to remedy societal and institutional pathologies that lead to individual and population illness and to health inequalities. Given current forces at work - the medical care and public health systems' foctis on social determinants of health, the increased use of value-based medical care payment reforms, and the emerging movement to train the next generation of health care and public health professionals in structural competency - the time is ripe to spread the view that law is an important lens through ...

 Ethics Of Evidence: Health Care Professionals In Public Benefits And Immigration Proceedings, Jesselyn Friley

Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics

This Article discusses the role of health care professionals in applications for public benefits and immigration relief. Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) often represent patients who are applying for disability or veterans benefits, or who are seeking asylum based on past persecution. The strength of a patient's medical evidence often determines whether their claim succeeds or fails. Many health care professionals provide corroborating evidence for their patients, but even when they do not, their opinions appear in the proceedings through medical records.

 Medical-Legal Partnerships With Communities: Legal Empowerment To Transform Care, Tamar Ezer

Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics

Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) integrate legal services into health care settings to provide holistic care and address the social determinants of health. This article brings a legal-empowerment lens to MLP work, arguing for a stronger focus on communities. It examines the application to MLPs of bringing services to communities, investing in rights literacy, and partnering with community-based paralegals. It then outlines the potential for a transformation in health and legal services to a rights - rather than needs-based framework where communities are active partners in program design and development.

 A Mental Health Checkup For Children At The Doctor's Office: Lessons From The Medical-Legal Partnership Movement To Fulfill Medicaid's Promise, Yael Cannon

Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics

Traumatic childhood events and the stress they cause can negatively affect health over a lifetime. For children with Medicaid coverage, visits to the doctor's office present an opportunity to improve this trajectory. Medicaid's Early Periodic Screening Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) mandate requires that children receive more than a basic physical when they see a doctor for regular "well-child checks."

Introduction To The Medical-Legal Partnership Symposium Issue, Susanna D. Evarts, Nathan Guevremont

Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics

Since the first medical-legal partnership (MLP) opened in 1993 at the Boston Medical Center, MLPs have increasingly become integrated into community health centers around the United States. And MLPs are in the business of growth: more than 300 MLPs are currently operating in the United States, and 59 percent of those are fewer than five years old. MLPs are collaborations between physicians and civil attorneys in which the attorneys are integrated into the health care team, and work with the patient to address civil legal needs that impact the social determinants of a patient's health.

Crispr/Cas-9 Technologies: A Call For A New Form Of Tort, Kendall Lovell

San Diego International Law Journal

Once relegated to the domains of science fiction, modern day scientists and researchers are poised on the precipice of making genome editing clinically available. Once introduced into a clinical setting the effects of an off-target mutation or germline edit will remain largely unknown until health issues arise later in life or in the following generation. The novelty of the injuries that will arise require a system that is able to balance the interests of physicians with single and multi-generational plaintiffs, while providing a realistic framework for courts to follow. This comment offers a brand-new context that accounts for these needs ...