Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Informed Consent: No Longer Just What The Doctor Ordered? Revisited, Marc D. Ginsberg

Akron Law Review

The law of informed consent in medicine has evolved from the original doctrine which required the physician’s disclosure of the risks, benefits, and complications of (and alternatives to) a proposed procedure or treatment. The doctrine now implicates the disclosure of matters personal to the physician. Questions regarding the breadth of the doctrine in other respects have developed as well. This paper represents the author’s second examination of the unconventional aspects of the law of informed consent.

“Heal Thyself.”—An Argument For Granting Asylum To Healthcare Workers Persecuted During The 2014 West African Ebola Crisis, Bethany Echols

SMU Law Review

This article argues for a change in United States asylum policy at a time when change is needed most. Those seeking asylum must prove that they fear persecution in their home country based on one of five protected categories and that their government is the persecutor or is unable to control the actions of the persecutors. Multiple articles have recognized that the “particular social group” is the most difficult category of asylum seeker to analyze. Not only do the standards for particular social groups (PSGs) vary among circuit courts, but judicial consistency is lacking.

This article focuses on a particular ...

Texas V United States: The Affordable Care Act Is Constitutional And Will Remain So, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

On December 14, 2018, in a widely reported decision, a federal judge in Texas ruled that the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional. The judge reasoned that since the ACA’s “individual mandate” is unconstitutional, the rest of the law cannot stand without it. However, the ACA will remain in place pending appeal, and it is highly unlikely that this ruling will stand.

Health Justice For Immigrants, Medha D. Makhlouf

Faculty Journal Articles

Should universal health coverage include immigrants within the “universe?” Should federal taxpayers subsidize health insurance coverage for immigrants, even those who are undocumented? Should all immigrants be required to purchase health insurance? Although the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is conceived as a progressive project to expand access to coverage and promote equity in health care, it intentionally left out the 12.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States and preserved the existing restrictions on subsidized coverage for lawfully present non-citizens. In fact, it increased the disparity in access to health care between U.S. citizens and immigrants. As ...

Physician-Assisted Death: A Selected Annotated Bibliography, Alyssa Thurston

Alyssa Thurston

Housing, Healthism, And The Hud Smoke-Free Policy, Dave Fagundes, Jessica L. Roberts

NULR Online

No abstract provided.

Requiring Human Papilloma Virus Vaccination For School Entry, Michelle J. Bayefsky, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Over 40,000 Americans are diagnosed as having HPV-associated cancer each year, including oropharyngeal cancer for men and cervical cancer for women. These diseases cause significant morbidity and mortality and are largely preventable if people are vaccinated against HPV before they are exposed to the virus. Unfortunately, despite strong evidence of safety and effectiveness of the HPV vaccine, vaccination rates have been disappointingly low – much lower than for the varicella, measles, mumps, rubella, and hepatitis B. The disparity in vaccination rates stem mainly from the fact that HPV vaccination is not universally required for school entry, while the other childhood ...

Rape Messaging, Alena Allen

Fordham Law Review

When feminists began advocating for rape reform in the 1970s, the rape message was clear: rape was not a crime to be taken seriously because women lie. After decades of criminal law reform, the legal requirement that a woman vigorously resist a man’s sexual advances to prove that she was raped has largely disappeared from the statute books, and, in theory, rape shield laws make a woman’s prior sexual history irrelevant. Yet, despite what the law dictates, rape law reforms have not had a “trickle-down” effect, where changes in law lead to changes in attitude. Women are still ...

Exited Prostitution Survivor Policy Platform, Marian Hatcher, Alisa L. Bernard, Allison Franklin, Audrey Morrissey, Beth Jacobs, Cherie Jimenez, Kathi Hardy, Marlene Carson, Nikki Bell, Rebecca Bender, Rebekah Charleston, Shamere Mckenzie, Vednita Carter

Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence

Survivors of prostitution propose a policy reform platform including three main pillars of priority: criminal justice reforms, fair employment, and standards of care. The sexual exploitation of prostituted individuals has lasting effects which can carry over into many aspects of life. In order to remedy these effects and give survivors the opportunity to live a full and free life, we must use a survivor-centered approach to each of these pillars to create change. First, reform is necessary in the criminal justice system to recognize survivors as victims of crime and not perpetrators, while holding those who exploited them fully responsible ...

Ethical Cannabis Lawyering In California, Francis J. Mootz Iii

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Cannabis has a long history in the United States. Originally, doctors and pharmacists used cannabis for a variety of purposes. After the Mexican Revolution led to widespread migration from Mexico to the United States, many Americans responded by associating this influx of foreigners with the use of cannabis, and thereby racializing and stigmatizing the drug. After the collapse of prohibition, the federal government repurposed its enormous enforcement bureaucracy to address the perceived problem of cannabis, despite the opposition of the American Medical Association to this new prohibition. Ultimately, both the states and the federal government classified cannabis as a dangerous ...

Ebola And War In The Democratic Republic Of Congo: Avoiding Failure And Thinking Ahead, Lawrence O. Gostin, Matthew M. Kavanagh, Elizabeth Cameron

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is exceptionally dangerous, occurring within active armed conflict and geopolitical volatility, including a million displaced persons. With 421 cases, 240 deaths, and the numbers increasing, this Ebola outbreak is the second deadliest in history. Recent spread to Butembo, home to 1.2 million people, raised concerns. The DRC, World Health Organization (WHO), and partners are leading a vigorous international response, yet despite deploying an experimental vaccine, cases doubled in October 2018 and many cases had unknown origin.

Uncontrolled Ebola outbreaks can expand quickly, as occurred in West Africa in 2014 ...

Falling Between The Cracks: Understanding Why States Fail In Protecting Our Children From Crime, Michal Gilad

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Law

The article is the first to take an inclusive look at the monumental problem of crime exposure during childhood, which is estimated to be one of the most damaging and costly public health and public safety problem in our society today. It takes-on the challenging task of ‘naming’ the problem by coining the term Comprehensive Childhood Crime Impact or in short the Triple-C Impact. Informed by scientific findings, the term embodies the full effect of direct and indirect crime exposure on children due to their unique developmental characteristics, and the spillover effect the problem has on our society as a ...

Public Health Emergency Preparedness: Globalizing Risk, Localizing Threats, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Infectious diseases are a constant reality, yet it takes a shock to jolt the public’s attention and spur political action. The past weeks saw such as a shock at busy US airports, with the emergency quarantine of 3 flights. At the same time, seemingly a world away, insecurity, weak health systems, and distrust are fueling a second major Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this year. Yet reacting to periodic shocks won’t safeguard our collective future. Emergency preparedness requires proactive planning and funding, with US leadership pivotal.

Principles Of Risk Imposition And The Priority Of Avoiding Harm, Gregory C. Keating

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

Standards which prescribe more than efficient precaution against physical harm and health injury are commonplace in American environmental, health and safety regulation. The “safe level” standard, for example, requires the elimination of all significant risks. The “feasibility” standard requires the elimination of significant risks to the extent insofar as it is possible to do so without impairing the long run survival of the activities which give rise to the risks. These standards reach back more than a generation to the founding of the Environmental Protection and Occupational Health and Safety Agencies. You might expect them to be too well-entrenched to ...

Child Obesity, School Food Environments And The Best Interests Of The Child, Benedetta Faedi Duramy

Publications

This article is about child obesity, school food, and the key role schools can play in creating environments that can enhance children’s eating patterns and lifestyle behaviours and, thus, can support the realization of children’s best interest in relation to food and health. In contrast to the traditional approach that frames the obesity problem as a personal issue or as a matter of parental responsibility, this article argues that the prevention of child obesity should be interpreted as a State obligation under both international and domestic laws. Analysis turns to the example of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act ...

Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy: How A Government For The People, Failed The People, Jeffery Mark Sauer

University of Miami Law Review

Despite having the potential to significantly reduce the passage of many lethal diseases and devastating birth defects, mitochondrial replacement therapy—a controversial medical procedure in which mitochondrial RNA from a healthy female replaces the mitochondrial RNA from the intended mother in vitro—will have no place in the United States anytime soon. Under the guise of purported safety concerns and ethical dilemmas, the Republican Congress used its “power of the purse” to halt any and all research furthering mitochondrial replacement therapy, notwithstanding the fact that many leaders in the medical community have advocated for further research. Several developed countries have ...

Practice-Based Research Networks Ceding To A Single Institutional Review Board, Jeanette M. Daly, Tabria Weiner Harrod, Kate Judge, Leann C. Michaels, Barcey T. Levy, David L. Hahn, Lyle J. Fagnan, Donald E. Nease Jr.

Journal of Patient-Centered Research and Reviews

Historically, a single research project involving numerous practice-based research networks (PBRNs) required multiple institutional review boards (IRBs) to be involved in approval of the project. However, to avoid redundancies, federal IRB regulations now allow cooperative research projects that involve more than one institution to use reasonable methods of cooperative IRB review and to cede authority for review and oversight of the project to a single lead IRB. Through ceding, a lead IRB has the authority for review and oversight of the project delegated by all participating sites’ IRBs and becomes the IRB of record for the ceded sites. In the ...

Childhood Obesity And Positive Obligations: A Child Rights-Based Approach, Benedetta Faedi Duramy

Seattle University Law Review

Childhood obesity is one of the most serious current public health challenges. Its prevalence has increased at an alarming rate. The World Health Organization estimated that in 2016 the global number of overweight children under the age of five was over 41 million. Although there is widespread concern about the rising rates of childhood obesity, there is not as much consensus on how to address the problem. Obesity has been mostly considered either a matter of personal responsibility or of parental responsibility when it concerns children. Inadequate attention has been given instead to the obligations borne by States to prevent ...

Hiring Workers With Disabilities Makes Sense Whether The Job Market Is Hot Or Cold, Kathleen A. Petkauskos

Commonwealth Medicine Publications

The U.S. Department of Labor released its latest report in September, and it was more of the same. Unemployment remained at 3.9 percent, where it has hovered for much of the year, but there was a shift for one key demographic.

After decades of struggle, workers with disabilities are beginning to move the needle, outpacing the employment gains of people without disabilities. In August 2018, the employment-to-population ratio for working-age people with disabilities jumped to 30.2 percent from 29.5 percent the year before. The labor force participation rate for working-age people with disabilities also increased, rising ...

Legalization Of Physician-Assisted Suicide For Increased Patient Autonomy, Morgan Mcenroe

Religion: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

This essay features an assessment of the various factors which play into the argument for legalization of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) in the United States for increased patient autonomy. Arguments for legalization of PAS as a means of end-of-life care remain separate from voluntary euthanasia. National legalization of PAS, for this fundamental principle of hospice care, is necessary to allow a choice to those in their final stages of life of how they wish to leave. If the values of PAS advocates are maximization of autonomy and minimization of suffering, then it follows that the chronically depressed, as well as patients ...