Law Commons^™

Racially-Tailored’ Medicine Unraveled, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

In June 2005, the FDA approved BiDil, a heart failure medication that is labeled for use only by African-Americans and thus is the first treatment of its kind. The drug likely portends a future of growing interest in "race-based" medicine. This phenomenon is emerging at the same time that scientists, in light of the Human Genome Project, are reaching an understanding that "race" has no biological meaning, and consequently, "racially-tailored" medicine is both puzzling and troubling.

This Article explores the reasons for the new focus on "racial-profiling" in medicine. It analyzes the risks and dangers of this approach, including medical …

Preplacement Examinations And Job-Relatedness: How To Enhance Privacy And Diminish Discrimination In The Workplace, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

Medical testing in the workplace is raising growing concern in light of increasingly available genetic tests and what is perceived as a general assault on individual privacy in the United States. Almost seventy percent of major U.S. firms require individuals who receive job offers to undergo medical testing prior to the commencement of employment, and the law does not restrict the scope of these examinations. Thus, employers test job candidates not only for fitness for duty and use of illegal substances, but also for a variety of conditions including susceptibility to workplace hazards, breast and colon cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, …

Responders’ Responsibility: Liability And Immunity In Public Health Emergencies, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

Many experts predict the advent of a public health emergency resulting from a flu pandemic or bioterrorism attack in the foreseeable future. At the same time, many health care providers express significant concern about liability arising from emergency response activities, because it is unlikely that they would be able to provide optimal care in crisis conditions. They also state that this concern will likely influence their willingness to be involved in response activities. This article addresses issues that have received little attention in the legal literature: liability and immunity in public health emergencies. The article provides a first-of-its-kind comprehensive analysis …

The Constitutional Right To Make Medical Treatment Decisions: A Tale Of Two Doctrines, B. Jessie Hill

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court has taken very different approaches to the question whether individuals have a right to make autonomous medical treatment choices, depending on the context. For example, in cases concerning the right to choose ¿partial-birth¿ abortion and the right to use medical marijuana, the Supreme Court reached radically different results, based on radically different reasoning.

More recent developments, including last Term's decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, have only highlighted the doctrinal confusion and the need for a resolution. In light of this pressing need, the goal of this Article is to view all of the constitutional cases touching on …

Ethics And E-Medicine, Jessica Wilen Berg

Faculty Publications

The computer revolution has had enormous effect on all aspects of the practice of medicine from scheduling and billing, to treatments, to research and beyond. This article focuses on the impact of new internet technologies on relationships between physicians and patients. These forms e-medicine may be utilized outside the confines of a pre-existing relationship, and thus have the potential to replace rather than merely augment traditional medical care. They change the setting and nature of the physician-patient relationship and thereby alter how medicine is practiced.

Initial discussions of this issue implied that e-medicine was problematic because it failed to create …

Constructing Competence: Formulating Standards Of Legal Competence To Make Medical Decisions, Jessica Wilen Berg

Faculty Publications

A young woman twenty-six weeks pregnant and dying from cancer lies heavily sedated and attached to a respirator. Is she competent to determine what life-prolonging measures should be taken, or to consent to an emergency cesarean section that may save her fetus but will probably shorten her life? A quadriplegic young man wishes to end his life and requests a court order granting immunity for the medical staff who will unhook his respirator and administer sedatives. Is he competent to choose to die? A person's competence will have implications for whether he or she is allowed to decide what type …

A Right To No Meaningful Review Under The Due Process Clause: The Aftermath Of Judicial Deference To The Federal Administrative Agencies, Ruqaiijah Yearby

Faculty Publications

The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment has been perverted in the federal administrative system. For example, federal agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), regularly deprive individuals of liberty and property with little to no review. In its regulation of the health care industry through the Medicare program, HHS often turns a blind eye to procedural Due Process protections, such as providing individuals an opportunity to challenge the deprivation of property at a hearing, even though the Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Medicare Act grant these protections. The Medicare compliance hearing …