Digital Commons Network^™

Federal Funds For Syringe Exchange Programs: A Necessary Component Toward Achieving An Aids-Free Generation, Rachel Hulkower, Leslie E. Wolf

Annals of Health Law and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Enhancing Communication Between Scientists, Government Officials, And The Lay Public: Advancing Science And Protecting The Public's Welfare Through Better Multi-Stakeholder Interfacing, Clark J. Lee, Patrick P. Rose, Earl Stoddard Iii

Annals of Health Law and Life Sciences

No abstract provided.

Cutting The Cord To Private Cord Blood Banking: Encouraging Compensation For Public Cord Blood Donations After Flynn V. Holder, Seema Mohapatra

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Use And Misuse Of Biomedical Data: Is Bigger Really Better?”, Sharona Hoffman, Andy Podgurski

Faculty Publications

Very large biomedical research databases, containing electronic health records (HER) and genomic data from millions of patients, have been heralded recently for their potential to accelerate scientific discovery and produce dramatic improvements in medical treatments. Research enabled by these databases may also lead to profound changes in law, regulation, social policy, and even litigation strategies. Yet, is “big data” necessarily better data?

This paper makes an original contribution to the legal literature by focusing on what can go wrong in the process of biomedical database research and what precautions are necessary to avoid critical mistakes. We address three main reasons …

Foreword, Robert Gatter

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

The Dual Use Dilemma: Crying Out For Leadership, David R. Franz

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Dual Use Research Policy Implementation, Carole R. Baskin, Todd J. Richardson

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Life Sciences Dual Use Research Of Concern, Public Health And Safety, And The Doctrine Of Unconstitutional Conditions, Vickie J. Williams

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Biodiplomacy: A Better Approach To Dual Use Concerns, Victoria Sutton

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Regulating Dual Use Research To Promote Public Trust: A Reply To Dr. Franz, Robert Gatter

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Complementarity In Public Health Systems: Using Redundancy As A Tool Of Public Health Governance, Lance Gable, Benjamin Mason Meier

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

International Health Emergencies In Failed And Failing States, Chiara Giorgetti

Law Faculty Publications

Global health emergencies, particularly those occurring in Jailed and Jailing States, can become threats to the stability of the international community. This Article assesses the international mechanisms available to respond to such emergencies. After defining global health emergencies, it discusses the implications of global outbreaks in Jailed and Jailing States. It then examines the role played by the World Health Organization in controlling global health emergencies, with particular reference to the newly amended 2005 International Health Regulations and the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network. Finally, it explores the role of other international organizations, including the United Nations Children's Fund …

Is Circumcision Legal?, Peter W, Adler

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

An important, divisive, and unanswered question of American law - and indeed of international law - is whether it is legal to circumcise healthy boys. American medical association and experts assert that circumcision is a common, safe, and relatively painlesss procedure with many medical benefits that exceed the risks. They argue that insurance should pay for it. Some religious organizations argue that circumcision is a sacred religious ritual. In any event, proponents claim that parents have a general and religious right to make the circumcision decision. They can point to the fact that no physician has ever been held liable …

Cutting The Cord To Private Cord Blood Banking: Encouraging Compensation For Public Cord Blood Donations After Flynn V. Holder, Seema Mohapatra

University of Colorado Law Review

This Article argues that the Ninth Circuit's recent ruling in Flynn v. Holder, which allowed compensation for peripheral blood stem cells ("PBSCs") obtained via apheresis] under the National Organ Transplant Act ("NOTA'), also opens up the possibility for compensation for umbilical cord blood ("cord blood"). The holding in Flynn applies to cord blood for several reasons. First, Flynn held that bone marrow was subject to NOTA's prohibition on compensation because bone marrow was explicitly mentioned in the statute. In contrast, no mention of cord blood appears in NOTA or its applicable regulations. Also, the procedure to utilize cord blood was …

Is Circumcision Legal?, Peter W, Adler

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

An important, divisive, and unanswered question of American law - and indeed of international law - is whether it is legal to circumcise healthy boys. American medical association and experts assert that circumcision is a common, safe, and relatively painlesss procedure with many medical benefits that exceed the risks. They argue that insurance should pay for it. Some religious organizations argue that circumcision is a sacred religious ritual. In any event, proponents claim that parents have a general and religious right to make the circumcision decision. They can point to the fact that no physician has ever been held liable …

What Does Choice Really Mean?: Prenatal Testing, Disability, And Special Education Without Illusions, Deborah Pergament

Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine

No abstract provided.

Hipaa As An Evidentiary Rule: An Analysis Of Miguel M. And Its Impact , Jennifer Clark

Journal of Law and Health

In New York suppression of evidence is only appropriate where constitutional, statutory, or decisional authority mandates it, even if obtained by unethical or unlawful means. The courts have been split on how to apply this standard to evidence obtained in violation of HIPAA. In the case In re Miguel M., the New York Court of Appeals addressed this question for the first time, finding that such evidence should be suppressed. Because it is the first authoritative case in New York addressing the evidentiary impact of a HIPAA violation, it is tempting to read Miguel M. as creating a new evidentiary …

Bloomberg’S Health Legacy: Urban Innovator Or Meddling Nanny?, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Michael Bloomberg leaves the mayoralty of New York City, with his health legacy is bitterly contested. The public health community views him as an urban innovator—a rare political and business leader willing to fight for a built environment conducive to healthier, safer lifestyles. To his distractors, however, Bloomberg epitomizes a meddling nanny—an elitist dictating to largely poor and working class people about how they ought to lead their lives. His policies have sparked intense public, corporate, and political ire—critical of sweeping mayoral power to socially engineer the city and its inhabitants.

Here, I seek to show how Bloomberg has fundamentally …

Distributions Of Industry Payments To Massachusetts Physicians, Aaron S. Kesselheim, Christopher Robertson, Kent Siri, Puneet Batra, Jessica M. Franklin

Faculty Scholarship

Some states have mandated systematic public disclosure of payments made by drug- and device-makers to health care practitioners. We used Massachusetts data to characterize the distribution of payment types and the variation among medical specialties.

The 30 months’ of data included 32,227 reported payments to 11,734 Massachusetts physicians, for a total of $76.7 million. The most common form of payment was food. Compensation for bona fide services was the payment type with the highest value.

We found that 25% of currently licensed Massachusetts physicians received at least one payment during the study period. Prevalence ranged by specialties from pediatricians (12%) …

Shame, Blame, And The Emerging Law Of Obesity Control, Lindsay Wiley

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In using law as a tool to combat the obesity epidemic, legal scholars and policymakers are drawing heavily on the lessons of tobacco control. This Article describes the resulting emergence of "obesity control law" and argues for a radical reorientation of it from a "denormalization" strategy based on the tobacco control experience to a "destigmatization" strategy based on the HIV prevention experience. The war on obesity is nearing a political crossroads. Subsidies and food industry regulations aimed at making our environment more conducive to physical activity and healthy eating are in danger of losing out to cheaper and more politically …

Towards A Framework Convention On Global Health: A Transformative Agenda For Global Health Justice, Lawrence O. Gostin, Eric A. Friedman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

International law has responded weakly to the inequities in health care, public health, and the broader determinates of health that collectively cause the greatest loss of lives and human potential every year. Approximately one-third of global deaths can be attributed to enduring and unconscionable inequities. Despite significant progress in improving global health over the past several decades, these inequities persist. Current global governance for health is inadequate to the task of resolving these inequities, from lack of accountability and enforcement to inadequate funding and the absence of leadership required to respond to the threats to health that arise from other …

Tuskegee Redux: Evolution Of Legal Mandates For Human Experimentation, Robert S. Levine, Jamila C. Williams, Barbara A. Kilbourne, Paul D. Juarez

Sociology Faculty Research

Human health experiments systematically expose people to conditions beyond the boundaries of medical evidence. Such experiments have included legal-medical collaboration, exemplified in the U.S. by the Public Health Service (PHS) Syphilis Study (Tuskegee). That medical experiment was legal, conforming to segregationist protocols and specific legislative authorization which excluded a selected group of African Americans from any medical protection from syphilis. Subsequent corrective action outlawed unethical medical experiments but did not address other forms of collaboration, including PHS submission to laws which may have placed African American women at increased risk from AIDS and breast cancer. Today, anti-lobbying law makes it …

Rethinking Hiv-Exposure Crimes, Margo Kaplan

Indiana Law Journal

This Article challenges the current legislative and scholarly approaches to HIV-exposure crimes and proposes an alternative framework to address their flaws. Twenty-four states criminalize consensual sexual activities of people with HIV. Current statutes and the scholarship that supports them focus on HIV-positive status, sexual activity, and knowledge of HIV-positive status as proxies for risk, mental state, and consent to risk. As a result, they are dramatically over- and underinclusive and stigmatize individuals living with HIV. Criminalization should be limited to circumstances in which a defendant exposed her partner to a substantial degree of unassumed risk and did so with a …

Dispatch From The Culture War: Virginia's Failed Hpv Vaccination Mandate, Rachel Reynolds

Law Student Publications

This paper will inquire into what makes Gardasil different from other vaccines, and how that impacts its administration. Part I will describe the specifics of the HPV vaccine: how it works and how Virginia decided to promote its usage. Part II will examine the ways in which jurisdictions have traditionally understood vaccination policy, and contrast it with the ways in which they have handled the HPV vaccine. Part III will examine the disadvantages of continuing the mandate’s ineffective political war of attrition, and suggest a coalition-building strategy to effect policy that honors communal values and meaningfully increases access to the …

An O’Neill Institute Briefing Paper: The Supreme Court’S Landmark Decision On The Affordable Care Act: Healthcare Reform’S Ultimate Fate Remains Uncertain, Emily W. Parento, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a landmark on the path toward ensuring universal access to health care in the United States. In a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court upheld the law in its entirety with the sole exception that Congress may not revoke existing state Medicaid funding to penalize states that decline to participate in the Medicaid expansion under the ACA. In this O’Neill Institute Briefing, we explain and analyze the Court’s decision, focusing on the individual purchase mandate and the Medicaid expansion, while …

Newsletter Summer 2012

Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Herding Immunity: Can U.S. Public Health Fight Off Disease Using Canada's Voluntary Vaccination System?, Tara Sheoran

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note advocates for the adoption of uniform federal vaccination laws in the United States, allowing only medical exemptions, to effectively protect public health. It references the Jacobson v. Massachusetts case, which upheld states' authority to mandate vaccinations, and contrasts the U.S. system with Canada's voluntary approach. The author argues that cultural differences in the U.S. make a voluntary system infeasible and emphasizes the need to balance individual rights with collective safety to prevent disease resurgence and maintain herd immunity.

Trips And Bits: An Essay On Compulsory Licenses, Expropriation, And International Arbitration, Peter B. Rutledge

Scholarly Works

This essay examines the potential for arbitration to resolve disputes between private companies and developing countries over the propriety of compulsory licenses. At bottom, my thesis is that arbitration supplies the medium through which to mediate the tension between the profit-seeking goals of private multinational companies and the development goals of foreign nations, especially in the developing world. The compulsory license debate raises a clash of fundamental interests between the patent holder, the patent holder’s state, and the host state. Arbitration can play an important role in balancing those interests, albeit a highly unusual one. Arbitration provides an essential forum …

A Framework Convention On Global Health: Health For All, Justice For All, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Health inequalities represent perhaps the most consequential global health challenge and yet they persist despite increased funding and innovative programs. The United Nations is revising the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that will shape the world for many years to come. What would a transformative post-MDG framework for global health justice look like? A global coalition of civil society and academics—the Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health (JALI)—has formed an international campaign to advocate for a Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH). Recently endorsed by the UN Secretary-General, the FCGH would reimagine global governance for …

The Guatemala Std Inoculation Study As The Incentive To Change Modern Informed Consent Standards, Marie Constance Scheperle

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.