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Full-Text Articles in Law
Continuous Reproductive Surveillance, Michael Ulrich, Leah R. Fowler
Continuous Reproductive Surveillance, Michael Ulrich, Leah R. Fowler
Faculty Scholarship
The Dobbs opinion emphasizes that the state’s interest in the fetus extends to “all stages of development.” This essay briefly explores whether state legislators, agencies, and courts could use the “all stages of development” language to expand reproductive surveillance by using novel developments in consumer health technologies to augment those efforts.
Femtechnodystopia, Leah R. Fowler, Michael Ulrich
Femtechnodystopia, Leah R. Fowler, Michael Ulrich
Faculty Scholarship
Reproductive rights, as we have long understood them, are dead. But at the same time history seems to be moving backward, technology moves relentlessly forward. Femtech products, a category of consumer technology addressing an array of “female” health needs, seem poised to fill gaps created by states and stakeholders eager to limit birth control and abortion access and increase pregnancy surveillance and fetal rights. Period and fertility tracking applications could supplement or replace other contraception. Early digital alerts to missed periods can improve the chances of obtaining a legal abortion in states with ever-shrinking windows of availability or prompt behavioral …
Commentary On Reynolds V. Mcnichols, Aziza Ahmed
Commentary On Reynolds V. Mcnichols, Aziza Ahmed
Faculty Scholarship
The 1973 case Reynolds v McNichols concerns a woman who was repeatedly arrested on suspicion of and for “prostitution.” During these arrests, Roxanne Reynolds, the defendant, was subject to forced examination and treatment. The arrests and examinations were authorized by Section 735 of the Revised Municipal Code of the City and County of Denver, which directed the Department of Health and Hospitals “to use every available means to ascertain the existence of and investigate all suspected cases of communicable venereal disease, and to determine the sources of such infections.” Reynolds argued that the ordinance was unconstitutional because it was irrational, …
The Covid-19 Pandemic And The Technology Trust Gap, Johanna Gunawan, David Choffnes, Woodrow Hartzog, Christo Wilson
The Covid-19 Pandemic And The Technology Trust Gap, Johanna Gunawan, David Choffnes, Woodrow Hartzog, Christo Wilson
Faculty Scholarship
Industry and government tried to use information technologies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, but using the internet as a tool for disease surveillance, public health messaging, and testing logistics turned out to be a disappointment. Why weren’t these efforts more effective? This Essay argues that industry and government efforts to leverage technology were doomed to fail because tech platforms have failed over the past few decades to make their tools trustworthy, and lawmakers have done little to hold these companies accountable. People cannot trust the interfaces they interact with, the devices they use, and the systems that power tech …
Digital Health Privacy In Active-Aging Settings: Will The Law Let You Age Well?, Tara Sklar, Richard Carmona, Kathie Insel, Christopher Robertson
Digital Health Privacy In Active-Aging Settings: Will The Law Let You Age Well?, Tara Sklar, Richard Carmona, Kathie Insel, Christopher Robertson
Faculty Scholarship
What is privacy and how are our interpretations of it changing with advances in technology? This question, and concerns around potentially violating a person’s right to privacy, have been emerging across industries around the world. Senior living providers have increased their exposure to privacy risks with the shift to implementing sensors throughout their communities. Typically located in digital health devices that can be worn on the body or placed in the environment, these sensors are capable of collecting and tracking data relevant to a person’s health and well-being on a continuous monitoring basis.
There are privacy laws and a growing …
Reconsidering Constitutional Protection For Health Information Privacy, Wendy K. Mariner
Reconsidering Constitutional Protection For Health Information Privacy, Wendy K. Mariner
Faculty Scholarship
What kinds of health information should be reported to government for civil purposes? Several competing trends encourage efforts to reassess the scope of constitutional protection for health information: the social and commercial value of health information; the amount of data held by third parties, from health care providers to internet servers; critiques of the third party doctrine exception to Fourth Amendment protection; and concerns about the loss of privacy. This article describes a variety of civil purposes for which health information is collected today. A close analysis of cases applying the third party doctrine, administrative search principles, and the special …
Privacy Rights And Public Families, Khiara Bridges
Privacy Rights And Public Families, Khiara Bridges
Faculty Scholarship
This Article is based on eighteen months of anthropological fieldwork conducted among poor, pregnant women receiving prenatal care provided by the Prenatal Care Assistance Program (“PCAP”) at a large public hospital in New York City. The Prenatal Care Assistance Program (“PCAP”) is a special program within the New York State Medicaid program that provides comprehensive prenatal care services to otherwise uninsured or underinsured women. This Article attempts to accomplish two goals. The first goal is to argue that PCAP’s compelled consultations – with social workers, health educators, nutritionists, and financial officers – function as a gross and substantial intrusion by …
Pandemic Preparedness: A Return To The Rule Of Law, Wendy K. Mariner, George J. Annas, Wendy E. Parmet
Pandemic Preparedness: A Return To The Rule Of Law, Wendy K. Mariner, George J. Annas, Wendy E. Parmet
Faculty Scholarship
Current discussions of pandemic influenza and emergency preparedness would do well to heed the lessons of US Airways flight 1549, which landed in the Hudson River in January 2009. This article examines what past emergencies teach us about how to prevent or control epidemics and argues that it is time for a return to the rule of law in pandemic preparedness. The most important resource in emergency preparedness is a healthy, resilient population, which depends importantly on sustainable systems of medical care and public health. Preparedness thus requires more money than law. After September 11, 2001, however, federal emergency preparedness …
Mission Creep: Public Health Surveillance And Medical Privacy, Wendy K. Mariner
Mission Creep: Public Health Surveillance And Medical Privacy, Wendy K. Mariner
Faculty Scholarship
The National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program has parallels in the growth of disease surveillance for public health purposes. This article explores whether laws requiring health providers to report to government names and identifiable information about patients with infectious or chronic diseases may be vulnerable to challenge as an invasion of privacy. A shift in the use of disease surveillance data from investigating disease outbreaks to data mining and analysis for research, budgeting, and policy planning, as well as bioterrorism, tests the boundaries of liberty and privacy. The Supreme Court has not reviewed a disease reporting law. Its few related …
Medicine And Public Health: Crossing Legal Boundaries, Wendy K. Mariner
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.
Dna Testing, Banking, And Genetic Privacy, George J. Annas
Dna Testing, Banking, And Genetic Privacy, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
"Who am I?” has always been a fundamental philosophical question that may require decades of reflection to answer. With the advent of DNA analysis, there is a growing public impression that the answer may be found in our genes. Various Internet sites offer descriptions of our ancestral history on the basis of our DNA, as well as testing for specific “disease genes” or general profiles that are used to recommend lifestyle changes, such as foods to be eaten or avoided. Researchers have even suggested that although the scientific evidence is speculative and at best probabilistic, many people will want to …
Family Privacy And Death: Antigone, War, And Medical Research, George J. Annas
Family Privacy And Death: Antigone, War, And Medical Research, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
Death ends the doctor–patient relationship, and legally the patient's right of privacy dies with the patient. Other privacy interests survive, the most central of which are those of the patient's family to bury the body and to prevent the disclosure of some personal information, such as medical information, about the deceased relative. Just what privacy interests encompass and when they can be overridden by other interests — such as freedom of speech or the claims of public policy or medical research — are evolving.1 Family privacy concerning a family member who has died is at the forefront of a …
Hipaa Regulations: A New Era Of Medical-Record Privacy?, George J. Annas
Hipaa Regulations: A New Era Of Medical-Record Privacy?, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
The new privacy regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) become effective April 14, 2003. This article outlines the implications of the new policy for practicing physicians. The regulations will affect virtually every physician, because they apply to any health care provider who conducts any business electronically, including billing. The regulations require health care providers to provide patients with a privacy notice that informs them who will have access to their records without their explicit consent and about patients' rights to inspect and amend their own records.
The Limits Of State Laws To Protect Genetic Information, George J. Annas
The Limits Of State Laws To Protect Genetic Information, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
During the 2000 presidential campaign, Al Gore characterized the DNA code as a secret code like that of the Nazis. In his words, “with the completion of the Human Genome, we are on the verge of cracking another enemy's secret code. When we intercept and decipher the coded messages that cancer sends from cell to cell, we will turn the tide, and win the war against cancer.” Gore was expanding the metaphor of the war on cancer, and commandeering the DNA code in the service of that metaphor. At about the same time, then president Bill Clinton called the DNA …
Genetic Privacy: There Ought To Be A Law, George J. Annas
Genetic Privacy: There Ought To Be A Law, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
If you don't believe in privacy, you probably don't believe in genetic privacy. I believe in privacy, including the constitutional right of privacy. But my interest is not to persuade you to believe in privacy, but rather to expose the major issues involved in genetic privacy. What makes genetic information different from other sensitive medical information? Are we getting carried away? Are we just treating DNA-based information differently because it is new?
The Genetic Privacy Act: A Proposal For National Legislation, Patricia Roche, Leonard H. Glantz, George J. Annas
The Genetic Privacy Act: A Proposal For National Legislation, Patricia Roche, Leonard H. Glantz, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
Privacy is a major issue in medical law, and genetics is a major force in contemporary medical science. Nonetheless, the combination of these two fields has only recently been seen as central to both individual rights and medical progress. Disclosures in June of 1996 that White House officials had wrongly acquired and read FBI files of raw background checks of prominent Republicans reminded Americans that there is no such thing as a completely secure and secret file of personal information. Had these files contained DNA profiles or samples, they would have supplied additional information about the unsuspecting individuals-information that could …
Predicting The Future Of Privacy In Pregnancy: How Medical Technology Affects The Legal Rights Of Pregnant Women, George J. Annas
Predicting The Future Of Privacy In Pregnancy: How Medical Technology Affects The Legal Rights Of Pregnant Women, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
The bodies of pregnant women are the battleground on which the campaign to define the right of privacy is fought. The ultimate outcome will likely be shaped at least as much by new medical technologies as by politics or moral persuasion. This is because medical technologies do much more than change what we can do: they can radically alter the way we think about ourselves. Technologies have the power to change "not only the relation of man to nature but of man to man."1 More than that, they can alter our very concept of what it means to be human, …
Refusal Of Lifesaving Treatment For Minors, George J. Annas
Refusal Of Lifesaving Treatment For Minors, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
I feel very comfortable talking about human rights, civil rights, the role of individual privacy, autonomy, and dignity in making decisions about oneself. Yesterday's topics concerning adults and privacy, however, were much easier than today's, which deal with children. It's not difficult to argue for the right of competent adults, whether it be in Texas' or California,2 to make their own decisions. As much as we may or may not agree with their decisions, at least arguing that -competent individuals like Dax Cowart and Elizabeth Bouvia have a right to make their own decisions makes a lot of sense; the …