Digital Commons Network^™

Healthy Living Needs Global Governance, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It may seem counter-intuitive, but the same factors that drive the spread of infectious diseases also contribute to the dominance of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the global burden of disease—urbanization, global markets and harmonized cultures. NCDs have overtaken infectious diseases as the leading cause of morbidity and premature mortality worldwide, with deaths concentrated among the poor due to the growing availability and affordability of highly-processed, unhealthy foods, alcohol and tobacco.

The global response to NCDs has been slow and fractured, with the World Health Organization dedicating scant funding and the United Nations waiting until September 2011 to hold a high-level …

Multipolarity, Intellectual Property And The Internationalization Of Public Health Law, Sam F. Halabi

Faculty Publications

This Article critically examines the proliferation of international legal agreements addressing global health threats like the outbreak of infectious diseases, tobacco use and lack of access to affordable medicines. The conventional wisdom behind this trend is that a global normative shift has occurred which has caused states to regard health as “special” and less subject to the normal rules of international law making because health threats endanger all of humanity. This Article challenges that thesis, arguing that at the same time the number and scope of international health law treaties has grown, developed states have subordinated health law to intellectual …

Global Rules For Global Health: Why We Need An Independent, Impartial Who, Devi Sridhar, Julio Frenk, Lawrence O. Gostin, Suerie Moon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Over the past few years the World Health Organization (WHO) has been undergoing a significant reform process. The immediate trigger was a budget crisis in 2010 that spurred massive lay-offs at the global agency. But at a more fundamental level, deeper systematic changes in global health governance have made reform imperative. While WHO reform draws relatively little attention outside diplomatic circles in Geneva, at stake are critical issues that will impact public health everywhere. This article’s key messages are:

• Recent outbreaks of MERS highlight the need for a global response to infectious disease
• The WHO has had a crucial role …

Multipolarity, Intellectual Property, And The Internationalization Of Public Health Law, Sam F. Halabi

Michigan Journal of International Law

The cause of global health today is arguably the most influential human rights movement ever seen, mobilizing vast flows of direct and indirect aid to the developing world to fight disease and build health care infrastructure; prompting the establishment of international organizations like UNAIDS and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund); including global health as a priority in major diplomatic summits; and driving the formation and implementation of international agreements to address global health threats. Champions of this movement claim that the diverse and influential state and non-state actors participating in the development of the …

Hiding The Statute In Plain View: University Of Texas Southwestern Medical Center V. Nassar, Michael J. Zimmer

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Limiting What We Can Eat: A Bridge Too Far?, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Innovative mayors across America are seeking to shape personal decisions about diet and physical activity, taking a page from tobacco control. But attempts to limit personal choices of what to eat have drawn the ire of vocal critics and sometimes the rebuke of judges, with former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s limit on soda portions becoming a key flash point. The public broadly accepts state power to control infectious diseases, but often draws a line at limiting dietary choices. The author wants to dispel some of the well-worn arguments in the obesity wars.

Analytical Framework For Examining The Value Of Antibacterial Products, Kevin Outterson, Aylin Sertkaya, John T. Eyraud, Anna Birkenback, Calvin Franz, Nyssa Ackerley, Valerie Overton

Faculty Scholarship

Antibacterial resistance is a growing global problem. According to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least 2 million people acquire serious infections with bacteria that are resistant to one or more of antibacterial drugs designed to treat those infections in the United States alone. Of these, approximately 23,000 die as a result of drug-resistant infections. Even though estimates vary widely, the economic cost of antibacterial resistance in the United States could be as high as $20 billion and $35 billion a year in excess direct healthcare costs and lost productivity costs, respectively …

Newsletter Spring 2014

Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Protecting Human Health And Stewarding The Environment: An Essay Exploring Values In U.S. Environmental Protection Law, Tracy Bach

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The purpose of this conference is to explore “the relationship between environmental protection and public health and how it should inform our efforts to become better stewards of the environment.” No one would disagree with the assertion that during the last forty years of federal environmental protection, air and water quality have improved and led to concomitant improvements in human health. Exploring the contours of this “relationship,” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy said in her keynote speech that “[t]he thing is, the word ‘relationship’ is too neutral. The link between the health of our planet and the health …

Accessing Justice Amid Threats Of Contagion, Janet E. Mosher

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Plans to prepare for a global pandemic have proliferated in recent years, and “legal preparedness” has emerged as a critical component of such plans. Commonly, the threat of disease is analogized to terrorism and recast as an issue of national security. In this framing, laws authorizing surveillance, containment, and forced treatment are understood as necessary. Law’s promise of protection against abuses in the exercise of such powers through procedural rights of review offers meagre comfort for critics concerned that individual liberties will readily yield to national security and public health in the context of an actual pandemic. An alternative framing …

Cholera As A Grave Violation Of The Right To Water In Haiti, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak, Steven D. Schwinn, Beatrice Lindstrom

Faculty White Papers

This report is submitted to the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation concerning the United Nation’s responsibility in spreading cholera in Haiti as a violation of the right to water and sanitation. The submission discusses violations of the right to water, including the role of United Nations peacekeepers in introducing the virus to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. The report addresses the United Nations’ unwillingness to accept responsibility for its role in the outbreak and its failure to establish redress mechanisms for victims affected by the cholera epidemic. It further discusses the …

Safety And Access: Is The Uk Regulatory Model Right For America?, Jocelyn Sweet

Health Law and Policy Brief

No abstract provided.

Setting The Stage: Enhancing Understanding Of Bioethical Challenges With Theatre, Karen H. Rothenberg

Faculty Scholarship

Theatre provides a dynamic platform to reflect upon the ethical, legal, and social implications of medical innovations and the powerful impact on personal and professional relationships. This article explores the last four to five decades of theatre, which coincide with the evolution of the formal discipline of bioethics and the field of medical humanities, to aid in the understanding of the bioethical challenges we face today and to place them in an historical and societal context. Four plays are discussed that reflect the ethical and legal context of their eras and reveal significant ethical challenges for us to consider.

Probiotics: Achieving A Better Regulatory Fit, Diane E. Hoffmann, Claire M. Fraser, Francis Palumbo, Jacques Ravel, Virginia Rowthorn, Jack Schwartz

Faculty Scholarship

In 2007, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the Human Microbiome Project (HMP), a $150 million initiative to characterize the microbial communities found at several different sites on the human body and to analyze the role of these microbes in human health and disease. Many lines of research have demonstrated the significant role of the microbiota in human physiology. The microbiota is involved, for example, in the healthy development of the immune system, prevention of infection from pathogenic or opportunistic microbes, and maintenance of intestinal barrier function. The HMP findings are helping us understand the role and variation of …

The Health Consequences Of Sex Trafficking And Their Implications For Identifying Victims In Healthcare Facilities, Laura J. Lederer, Christopher A. Wetzel

Annals of Health Law and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Squashing The Superbugs: A Proposed Multifaceted Approach To Combatting Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria , Lauren Orrico

Journal of Law and Health

Section II of this Note will provide background on the practices of the United States farming system, which fosters the creation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This section will also provide background on the detrimental effects that antibiotic resistance has on human health and will briefly describe the legal history of food and drug regulations. After establishing an informational foundation, Part III will elaborate on current laws and describe the legal authority of key players, before pointing out the shortcomings in current animal feed policy and recommending the development of further regulation in this area. Additionally, Part III will propose new legislation …

Chapter 231: Putting Swap Meet Animal Vendors In The Dog House: Regulating The Sale Of Animals At Swap Meets, Robert Binning

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.

Uncle Sam Knows What’S In Your Medicine Cabinet: The Security And Privacy Protection Of Health Records Under The Hitech Act, 30 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 667 (2014), Ranjit Janardhanan

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

Democratic Deliberation And The Ethical Review Of Human Subjects Research, Govind Persad

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has proposed deliberative democracy as an approach for dealing with ethical issues surrounding synthetic biology. Deliberative democracy might similarly help us as we update the regulation of human subjects research. This paper considers how the values that deliberative democratic engagement aims to realize can be realized in a human subjects research context. Deliberative democracy is characterized by an ongoing exchange of ideas between participants, and an effort to justify decisions that bind participants by appeal to reasons that the participants can understand and share. Even when unanimous …

The Case For Flexible Intellectual Property Protections In The Trans-Pacific Partnership , Matthew E. Silverman

Journal of Law and Health

The United States and eleven other countries are currently in the end stages of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—the largest free trade agreement (FTA) in U.S. history—which incorporates a range of trade topics, including the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRs). Although the negotiations have been highly secretive, negotiating texts of the agreement leaked as recently as November 2013 have suggested that the United States is proposing IPR provisions, specifically relating to patent protection, that are stronger and less flexible than IPR provisions included within three of the four most recent U.S. FTAs. This paper addresses and analyzes …

Using Egg Freezing To Extend The Biological Clock: Fertility Insurance Or False Hope?, Seema Mohapatra

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Health And Human Rights, Jonathan Todres

Faculty Publications By Year

No abstract provided.

Ethics Consultations And Conflict Engagement In Health Care, Charity Scott

Faculty Publications By Year

This article explores the intersection of two professional fields - bioethics and clinical ethics consultation in health care on one hand, and alternative dispute resolution ("ADR") and conflict management on the other - which until recent years remained relatively unknown to each other. It marries the literatures and lessons of these two fields in order to promote the quality of ethics consultations in hospitals and other health care organizations. * Increasingly, health care ethics committees and consultants acknowledge the need to employ the frameworks, approaches, and tools of good conflict management to do their work effectively. Similarly, conflict specialists and …

Sovereignty, Citizenship, And Public Health In The United States, Polly J. Price

Faculty Articles

Sovereign boundaries, state borders, and distinctions between citizens and non-citizens undermine public health in the United States in a number of ways. For historical reasons, we are prone to view immigration and public health as separate interests, but they are in fact convergent. Historically, federal authority over immigration alleviated costs otherwise borne by state and local governments. Today, however, states are primarily responsible for the prevention and control of communicable disease acquired outside U.S. borders. The federal and state governments confront a stark division of authority with respect to non-citizens: The federal government decides which non-citizens to admit into the …

Hiv Infrastructure Study Columbia, Sc, Susan S. Reif, Elena Wilson, Carolyn Mcallaster

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sex, Science, And The Age Of Anxiety, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article examines the question of whether the HPV vaccine should be mandated (for girls and/or boys) in the context of declining rates of childhood immunization, and the potential threat to public health that this decline poses. The article addresses two interconnected legal issues: first, is mandating vaccines to prevent the spread of disease constitutional under substantive due process and equal protection principles, and second, should parents be permitted to “opt out” of mandatory vaccination on their children’s behalf, either for all vaccines or those which prevent particular diseases. The article addresses these issues in the context of America’s growing …

The Increasing Weight Of Regulation: Countries Combat The Global Obesity Epidemic, Allyn L. Taylor, Emily W. Parento, Laura A. Schmidt

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Obesity is a global epidemic, exacting an enormous human and economic toll. In the absence of a comprehensive global governance strategy, states have increasingly employed a wide array of legal strategies targeting the drivers of obesity. This article identifies recent global trends in obesity-related legislation and makes the normative case for an updated global governance strategy.

National governments have responded to the epidemic both by strengthening traditional interventions and by developing novel legislative strategies. This response consists of nine important trends: (1) strengthened and tailored tax measures; (2) broader use of counter-advertising and health campaigns; (3) expanded food labeling; (4) …

Protecting Public Health From Inside A Jail Cell, Sarah Geduldig

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Prison Health Care After The Affordable Care Act: Envisioning An End To The Policy Of Neglect, Evelyn Malavé

Faculty Publications

Inadequate prison health care has created a health crisis for reentering prisoners and their communities—a crisis that is exacerbated by barriers to employment and other collateral consequences of release. This Note will first examine how current Eighth Amendment doctrine has failed to sufficiently regulate prison health care so as to have any significant effect on the crisis. Next, it will argue that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) alters the Eighth Amendment analysis by triggering a change in the “evolving standards of decency” that guide the doctrine. Specifically, this Note will argue that, after the passage of the ACA, releasing sick, …

Pacific Nortwest Perspective: The Impact Of The America Invents Act On Nonprofit Global Health Organizations, John Morgan, Veronica Sandoval

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA) makes fundamental changes to the legislative landscape governing patent law in the United States and will bring about corresponding changes in the manner in which inventors and attorneys address patent issues. While the law is newly implemented, inventors in all sectors of the economy are eager to formulate reactions to it. In this Article, we explore the effects of the AIA on nonprofit research organizations dedicated to global health and life sciences. We report the perspectives of counsel representing such organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest. We also consider the patent system, and …