Law Commons^™

Compensation Programs For Vaccine-Related Injury Abroad: A Comparative Analysis, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

Adverse physical reactions to immunizations, ¹ although comparatively rare, raise fundamental questions about the relationship between the state and the individual. In the United States, responsibility for vaccine-related injuries has been judicially and administratively debated for nearly two decades, beginning with the seminal decision of Davis v. Wyeth Laboratories. The primary issue is whether a person who suffers an unpredictable adverse reaction to a vaccination is entitled to receive compensation for his or her injuries, and if so, whether compensation should be provided by the manufacturer of the vaccine as part of its responsibility for the effects of its products, …

Getting To Market: The Scientific And Legal Climate For Developing An Aids Vaccine, Wendy K. Mariner, Robert C. Gallo

Faculty Scholarship

Expectations of a vaccine to prevent acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are rising. Not only are the prospects for an effective immunogen improving, but immunization appears to hold the greatest promise for halting the spread of infection and disease.' Identification of the causal agent-the retrovirus called HTLV-III, LAV, or generically, HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)-has provided the direction and limited the options for containing the disease.

Prevention is, of course, critical where the disease must be presumed to be fatal in all cases. Although there is no clear evidence that any single exposure to HIV will result in infection or disease, prudence …

Surrogate Parenthood, George J. Annas, John Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

Does a surrogate mother have the right to change her mind? Not according to the Baby M court, which enforced a $10,000 contract between Mary Beth Whitehead and William and Elizabeth Stern that it found was "in the best interests of the child." The decision is now on appeal before the New Jersey Supreme Court.

The case has produced sharply divided reaction-some denounce surrogate arrangements as Orwellian while others see them as a boon to childless couples.

George Annas, a professor of health law at Boston University's School of Public Health, would void these contracts on policy grounds. He believes …

Substance, Process And Outcome In Constitutional Theory, David B. Lyons

Faculty Scholarship

Scholarship in philosophy proceeds at a slower pace than in the law. As Tom Lehrer, the poet laureate of a recent generation, might have said, the law biz travels on a faster track. Or so it seems to a philosopher who has recently been treading the tracks of constitutional lawyers.

And so it is with apprehension that I take as my text a book that was published as long ago as 1980. As the title of this lecture might suggest to someone with so long a memory, the book is John Hart Ely's Democracy and Distrust.' That work provoked an …

Chapter 3 - Religion, Rights And Difference In The Early Woman's Rights Movement (Previously Published Article), Elizabeth B. Clark

Manuscript of Women, Church, and State: Religion and the Culture of Individual Rights in Nineteenth-Century America

The meeting of feminists at Seneca Falls in July of 1848 marked the nominal beginning of the movement which in the nineteenth century was labeled "woman's rights." For us that term has become commonly interchangeable with "suffrage," and we often assume that "woman's rights" describes a seventy-odd year campaign to gain civil and political power and protection from a government which -- although it had perpetrated outrages against women and blacks -- had an unquestioned legitimacy as the guarantor and enforcer of rights.

Religion, Rights And Difference In The Early Woman's Rights Movement, Elizabeth B. Clark

Publications

The meeting of feminists at Seneca Falls in July of 1848 marked the nominal beginning of the movement which in the nineteenth century was labeled "woman's rights." For us that term has become commonly interchangeable with "suffrage," and we often assume that "woman's rights" describes a seventy-odd year campaign to gain civil and political power and protection from a government which -- although it had perpetrated outrages against women and blacks -- had an unquestioned legitimacy as the guarantor and enforcer of rights.

Use Of Comparative Risk Methods In Regulatory And Common Law, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Several persistent problems afflict risk decisionmaking. In the regulatory context, agencies confront the problems of how to prioritize risks for best use of their limited resources and how to determine "how safe is safe enough," or a risk limit, when action is to be taken on a particular risk.

In the trial courts hearing toxic tort actions, the jury must often determine whether an activity is "unreasonably dangerous" or a product is "defective" because of its risk attributes.

To resolve these problems, many have proposed the use of risk comparisons. Now that we can quantify risks, why not compare them …

The Dual State - Federal Regulation Of Financial Institutions - A Policy Proposal, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

In 1983 South Dakota passed an Act permitting its chartered banks to sell and underwrite insurance.¹ The issue that I address is whether states should have the power to pass such a law. I am not concerned here with interpretation of positive law but with public policy implications.

The issue is a matter of congressional policy. Like most financial intermediaries banks are regulated by both state and federal laws,² but it is clear that the federal government has the power to preempt state laws that regulate banks. Therefore, whether South Dakota can pass the statute is not a …

The Impact Of Medical Technology On The Pregnant Woman's Right To Privacy, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

In the context of the bicentennial of the Constitution and science's relationship to society, it has been argued that "the advance of science and technology in the West has changed not only the relation of man to nature but of man to man."' This seemingly immodest statement may soon prove an understatement. In the arena of human reproduction, the marriage of science and technology in medicine may change not only the relationship of man to nature and man to man, but more significantly, the very concept of what it means to be human. This, in turn, will directly affect how …

Protecting The Liberty Of Pregnant Patients, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

We are seeing the beginning of an alliance between physicians and the state to force pregnant women to follow medical advice for the sake of their fetuses. No irreversible commitments to such an alliance have yet been made, but only a principled discussion of the issues is likely to prevent forced treatment from becoming standard medical practice.

In her futuristic novel The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood envisions a world in which physicians and the state combine to strip fertile women of all human rights. These women come to view themselves as "two-legged wombs, that's all; sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices." …

Trying To Live Forever, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Since the case of Karen Ann Quinlan, legal actions regarding the dying have become commonplace. Unfortunately, so has legal misinformation, misapplication, fantasy, and inhumanity. We seem to have frightfully underestimated the ability of lawyers to focus on trivia and self protection, and to ignore the basic human rights of dying persons. As the authors of the Hasting Center's Guidelines declare in the introduction:

Hospital legal counsel, lawyers serving other health care institutions, and legal advisors to individual health care professionals have a critical role to play in seeing that medicine is not driven by law, and health care professionals are …

The Inapplicability Of Market Theory To Adoptions, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

Judge Posner addresses an important issue. More than 130,000 couples in this country want to adopt children, and plenty are available. But most couples want healthy, white infants, and those children are in short supply. To get the child of their choice, these couples are forced to pay large sums of money to intermediaries. On the other hand, many unwed, teenage women face unwanted pregnancies. Many of them opt for abortion, which is relatively inexpensive, or for carrying to term and raising the children themselves, which is governmentally subsidized. But few of these women choose to have the child and …

Are Mit Students Rational?, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This paper reports the results of a survey conducted~ in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus dining hall~ The aim of the survey was to delineate students' perceptions of marginal cost,~ in a very specific, but not uncommon, situation. A majority of the respondents' answers suggest a complete misunderstanding of the relevant marginal costs. This study attempts to find out how individuals perceive ~their opportunity sets in a specific choice situation. The individuals studied are ~students who have meal plans at the M.LT. dining halls. Each term students pay a high price for the meals until a certain number of …

The Case For Limiting Judicial Review Of Labor Board Certification Decisions, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

Part I of this Article explains in more technical detail the effects of the present system of judicial review of Board certification decisions and how that system developed. Part II argues that this review should be sharply curtailed, suggesting that unless a court is able to rule that the Board has rendered a certification decision for an improper motive, it should reconsider that decision only to the extent it involves a constitutional issue, a narrow jurisdictional issue, or one of a few bounded technical issues. Such a curtailment of review should be embraced by all who remain sympathetic to the …

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Regulation Of Radiation Hazards In The Workplace: Present Problems And New Approaches To Reproductive Health, Michael S. Baram, Neal Smith

Faculty Scholarship

On December 20, 1985, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) proposed revisions to its Standards for Protection Against Radiation [hereinafter Standards].¹ If adopted, the new Standards will provide additional protection for millions of workers and their unborn children. The effects of the Standards will extend, however, far beyond the health of those exposed to radiation. Specifically, the NRC's proposal may provide a new paradigm for regulating health hazards that have no safe threshold level of exposure. It will also focus debate on whether or not women should be precluded from working in fetotoxic environments

Contract Law As A System Of Values Book Review, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

Contract law has changed dramatically since the heyday of free contract ideology. The false conflict in the cases and literature between facilitation of market transactions and regulation to achieve social aims has been transcended, largely due to the realization that social aims are behind all of contract law. In place of this false conflict, new questions about the values advanced through contract law have been posed. Contract theory needs an account of the values underlying doctrines that were previously justified (wrongly) as means to effectuate the intent of the parties. Hugh Collins has given us such an account in his …

Death And The Magic Machine: Informed Consent To The Artificial Heart, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Jay Katz introduces his remarkable and insightful book, The Silent World of Doctor and Patient, by recounting a portion of Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward. He describes an encounter between a patient, Oleg Kostoglotov, and his doctor, Dr. Ludmilla Afanasyevna. The doctor wanted to use experimental hormone treatment, but the patient refused. Katz argues that what made conversation impossible between them was the patient's undisclosed intention of leaving the hospital to treat himself with "a secret medicine, a mandrake root from Issyk Kul." He could not trust the doctor with this information because the doctor would make the decision for the patient …