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Series

Health Law and Policy

Boston University School of Law

2007

Health law

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Medical Judgment In Court And In Congress - Abortion, Refusing Treatment, And Drug Regulation, George J. Annas Oct 2007

Medical Judgment In Court And In Congress - Abortion, Refusing Treatment, And Drug Regulation, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past four decades, the courts and Congress have consistently granted almost unqualified deference to physicians (and medical ethics), at least for treatment decisions made in the context of a consensual physician-patient relationship. The primary exception to this harmonious deference is the 2007 abortion decision of Gonzales v. Carhart, 127 S. Ct. 1610 (2007), and it is reasonable to review our continuing and seemingly intractable legal debate over abortion and the physician's role in it to determine if it could erode judicial and congressional deference to medical judgment in other areas of medical practice and medical ethics.


Foreword: The Politics Of Health Law: Any Tipping Points In View?, Frances H. Miller Jan 2007

Foreword: The Politics Of Health Law: Any Tipping Points In View?, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Malcolm Gladwell explored the way certain ideas and behaviors can proliferate "just like viruses do" once they achieve a critical mass in The Tipping Point,' his best-seller about the sorts of widespread and rapidly adopted social phenomena he labels epidemics. Gladwell's subtitle, "How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference," indicates that he thinks it need not take much to get one of these social epidemics rolling. He does believe, however, that three factors are essential: getting "people with a particular and rare set of social gifts" involved,2 packaging the ideas so they are "irresistible" under the circumstances, 3 …


Medicine And Public Health: Crossing Legal Boundaries, Wendy K. Mariner Jan 2007

Medicine And Public Health: Crossing Legal Boundaries, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

In 2006, New York City began a mandatory reporting system for laboratories to submit blood sugar (A1c) test results (primarily for diabetes) to the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene without the patient's consent. This article examines whether this new program is an innovative way to improve New Yorkers' health, an invasion of medical privacy, or usurpation of the physician's role. The registry is an example of public health initiatives in chronic diseases, which challenge the limits of laws governing medicine care and public health programs by blurring the historical boundaries between them.