Food and Drug Law Commons^™

The Transatlantic Clinical Trial Transparency Gap, Gabriela Lenarczyk

Georgia Journal of Law & Technology

Clinical trial data occupy a contested space between private commercial assets and public goods. While the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has historically shielded these data through expansive trade-secret interpretations, the European Union (EU) has adopted a more open disclosure regime. This Article compares the two regimes and traces how the EU’s two-decade journey toward transparency has become a key reference for researchers and advocates of open data-sharing.

Focusing on EU practices—targeted redactions, time-bound access, granular disclosure guidelines—the paper shows that U.S. objections to broader transparency often rest on overstated concerns about competitive harm. A Filspari (sparsentan) case …

Drug Scheduling As Institutional Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Controlled Substances Act (CSA), U.S. drug law has simultaneously fueled mass incarceration, inhibited needed access, and enabled an opioid crisis. To make better choices, this Article argues that the CSA’s institutional design must account for three distinctive features of psychoactive drugs: the prohibition problem (drug bans tend to backfire when demand is inelastic), the pharma problem (drug companies have supercharged incentives to manipulate markets and exploit consumers), and the pluralism problem (drug policy involves irreducibly political questions that no expert discipline can answer). On their own, each of these problems calls for reform to the CSA. Taken together, they call …

Medical Device Dangers: Choosing Ignorance In The Courts And At The Fda, George Horvath

William & Mary Law Review

Medical devices save lives and improve well-being but have caused as many as 83,000 deaths and 1.7 million injuries in a recent decade. Decisions of critical importance—patients’ decisions whether to have a device implanted, doctors’ decisions about which device to use, insurers’ decisions whether to reimburse for those devices—depend on information about risk that is provided by manufacturers. But producing this information is costly. Injured patients, through private lawsuits under state products liability theories, can incentivize device manufacturers to incur these costs and to produce and disclose information about device risk. Unfortunately, courts are making it increasingly unlikely that this …

Tracing The Truth: Strengthening U.S. Food Traceability With Lessons From The Eur. Union, Carolina Gomez

University of Miami Business Law Review

The United States (U.S.) has made significant progress in improving food traceability, with the FDA’s Final Food Traceability Rule set to take effect in 2026. This long-overdue regulation aims to improve outbreak response and better protect public health. However, major gaps in the U.S. traceability system remain, leaving consumers exposed to preventable foodborne illness outbreaks. Legislative challenges, including H.R. Bill 7563 and provisions in the Fiscal Year 2025 Agriculture Appropriations bill, threaten to delay or weaken these necessary reforms. Compounding these challenges, on August 7, 2025, the FDA proposed extending the compliance deadline for the rule by 30 months, to …

Fda Policy Shift On Clinical Efficacy Study Requirements For Monoclonal Antibody Biosimilars, Rileigh Rahrig, Madilyn Paphanchith, Allie Honigford, Daniella Egbujor, Haley Brown, Jenny Magana Figueroa, Connor Dains, Brenna Hissong, Kyle W. Parker

Pharmacy and Wellness Review

Biologic products are widely used in the treatment of various disease states, including rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, cancers, and genetic diseases. These products are derived from proteins and genes produced by living organisms and are subsequently used to treat specific disease states. Due to the complexity of biological products, the costs of research and production are high. Currently, the United States approval pathway requires extensive testing for biologics to be designated as biosimilars, meaning there are no clinically meaningful differences in safety or purity of their active components. These required tests can be redundant, as biosimilars are developed using …

A New Framework For Drug Pricing Law And Policy, Rachel E. Sachs

Indiana Law Journal

Scholars and policymakers have expressed concern about the impact of high prescription drug costs on patients and healthcare budgets. This Article presents a new theoretical framework for evaluating both the problem to be addressed by drug pricing reforms as well as the efficacy of potential solutions. In seeking to solve “the drug pricing problem,” our legal system has given primacy to competition rather than regulation to drive down drug prices. This Article disaggregates the broader concept of drug competition into four steps, each of which must be addressed and each of which elevates different institutional actors to key roles. In …

The Law’S Failure To Protect Our Drinking Water From Pfas, Emily Levine

Indiana Law Journal

How did per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the forever chemicals known to harm human health and appear in most Americans’ blood, spread so widely in drinking water? Why didn’t someone with the power and knowledge to stop this crisis step in sooner? Simply imposing limits on PFAS levels in public water systems is the bare minimum to protect American drinking water—a necessary step but only the starting point of a long path toward creating a regulatory framework that can withstand the whims of changing presidential administrations and political influences.

     It is too easy for the EPA Administrator, either out of …

Rebalancing The Milk Market: A Shared-Burden Framework For Dairy And Plant-Based Producers, Isabelle Ulrich

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

This Note examines the structural and regulatory differences between traditional dairy products and the rapidly expanding plant-based milk products in the United States. Through analysis of historical Federal Milk Marketing Order policies, mandatory checkoff programs, and contrasting labeling standards in the United States and European Union, this Note reveals how plant-based milk producers enjoy competitive advantages without sharing the financial or regulatory burden that traditional dairy producers face. This Note argues for a shared-burden policy requiring all entities marketing “milk,” whether dairy or plant-based, to contribute to promotional and regulatory funds. This framework will restore market fairness, preserve consumer choice, …

Hester’S Dubious Roots And Legacy: Open Fields Doctrine Under Scrutiny, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

For over a century, open fields doctrine has shaped Fourth Amendment law, denying people the right to be secure on their own property. Its application has steadily expanded, with the result that, by some estimates, the Government can now engage in warrantless surveillance of some ninety-six percent of private land and buildings regardless of fences, postings, the distance from public roads or byways, or the use to which the property is put. An originalist approach throws the doctrine into disarray: at the time of the Founding, common law protected the curtilage, which extended to the fields, barns, storehouses, and other …

Legalizing Magic Mushrooms: A Different Set Of Laws For A Different Kind Of Drug, Edward S. Adams

Articles

This Article explores the regulation of the cannabis industry, highlighting its origins, history, and shortcomings. The Article then compares the cannabis and psilocybin industries, arguing against the replication of the cannabis regulatory structure for psilocybin. Instead, this Article will propose tailored regulatory solutions designed to address the unique characteristics of psilocybin and foster a well-regulated, safe, and effective market.

Plowing With A Pencil: Policy Approaches For States Squaring Agricultural Interests With Select Public Interests, Mary Eichenberger

Journal of Food Law & Policy

From a fifth-generation wheat farmer on the Kansas plains to a cattle rancher in Montana to a beginning peach producer in Georgia, American agriculture produces, provides, and protects sources of food, fiber, fuel, and shelter. American agriculture, once solely supported by rural family farmers and steeped in an agrarian system, now relies heavily on industrialized operations, creating an arena ripe for the clash of diverse policy perspectives. As farmers produce the food enjoyed at dinner tables across the country, the inevitable impacts of agriculture production on the environment have led to policy and legal arguments surrounding the regulation of agriculture. …

Key Contributions To Agricultural Law Select Works By Agricultural Law Professor, Susan A. Schneider, An Annotated Bibliography, Susan A. Schneider

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The authors provide an annotated list of publications, remarks, books, and book chapters authored by agricultural law scholar and professor, Susan A. Schneider, in honor of her forthcoming retirement.

The growth and evolution of the study of agricultural and food law may be attributed to several legal scholars who, based on a personal connection with agriculture, chose to dedicate their careers to advocating for the family farmer. Professor Susan A. Schneider is one such legal scholar.

Professor Susan A. Schneider, a native of Minnesota, is currently the William H. Enfield Professor of Law and the Director of the LL.M. in …

P-E-S-T-O-G-O: This Third Circuit Ruling Has Got To Go, A Deep Dive Into The Circuit Split Issue Of Fifra Preemption, R. Dylan Smith

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The American public is becoming increasingly concerned about pesticides. From “forever chemicals” to environmental justice concerns, public awareness of pesticide issues is only becoming more prevalent. However, one pesticide has seized public attention in a significant way. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s “Roundup” and other commercial pesticides has been the subject of heated debate in federal courtrooms across the nation. The rising controversy over glyphosate has even led some jurisdictions to attempt to ban or restrict the use of the product altogether.

While the scientific studies and legal definitions about glyphosate and its cancer link are inconsistent, a reasonable …

An Interview With Former United States Department Of Agriculture General Counsel Janie Simms Hipp And Former Farm Credit Administration General Counsel David Grahn: Reflections On The Past & Future Of The Field Of Agricultural Law, Lauren Wustenberg

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Former United States (“U.S.”) Department of Agriculture (“USDA” or “Department”) General Counsel Janie Simms Hipp and Former Farm Credit Administration (“FCA”) General Counsel David Grahn have worked as public servants in the field of agricultural law for over forty years. They have led careers that are illustrative of the meaningful impact that a career in agriculture can have, the breadth and value of the Department of Agriculture, and the diversity of experiences and opportunities that a career in agricultural law can bring.

Janie and David graciously agreed to sit for the following interview in recognition of the 20th Anniversary Edition …

Municipalities, Let The People Have Their Chickens And Eat Them, Too, Cindy Vong

Journal of Food Law & Policy

In the pre-industrial era, before the advent of long-distance transportation or food preservation, human survival necessitated proximity to where food was grown or husbanded. Cities located near agriculturally productive lands and domesticated livestock animals were commonplace within cities. But by the 1920s, the technological innovations of the Second Industrial Revolution left urban areas free of farm animals and farm-related activities. Local governments exercised their powers to codify the separation of residential and agricultural uses within cities and reinforce the idea that food production was not proper in community neighborhoods. Yet, a century later, local governments use those same powers to …

Why Food In The United States May (Still) Never Be Safe: A Look Back At My Over Thirty Years Thinking About Food And The Law, Denis Stearns

Journal of Food Law & Policy

This article can serve a function as a concluding section—a kind of coda—for issues addressed in greater depth by the author (Denis Stearns) before.

This article also allows Sterns to return to a central question that prompted his thought-journey in the first place: Why does the food in this country continue to be so unsafe, despite all of the laws, all of the enforcement efforts, all of the food safety advocacy, and all of the lawsuits filed to recover damages on behalf of people injured and killed year after year. What follows, then, are additional and updated conclusions that thirty …

The Law Of Hard Times: What Today’S Lawyers And Policymakers Can Learn From The Farm Crisis Of The 1980s, Sarah Vogel, Mary Eichenberger

Journal of Food Law & Policy

It is undeniable, the United States is experiencing another farm depression similar to the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Farm Crisis of the 1980s. While every era is different, knowledge of the case law developed during the farm struggles of the 1930s and 1980s, and the statutory and regulatory reforms that arose from advocacy during those difficult times will be helpful to today’s agricultural lawyers and policymakers. As farmers and ranchers again find themselves, due to circumstances beyond their control, in financial distress, they will contact attorneys, state secretaries of agriculture, state attorneys general, agriculture organizations, and state …

Reflection And Gratitude: The Journal Of Food Law & Policy From A Twenty-Year Perspective, Margie Alsbrook

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Twenty years after the Journal of Food Law & Policy published its first issue, I find myself looking back with deep gratitude for the people who helped create it, for the students who sustained it, and for the community that continues to make it thrive. What began as an untested idea has grown into a respected publication and a cornerstone of a still-growing field. This essay is both a reflection on that journey and a heartfelt thank-you to everyone who made it possible.

High At Home: How The Continued Federal Prohibition Of Cannabis In Federally Subsidized Housing Perpetuates The War On Drugs, Marcella Jackson

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The Next Drug Epidemic Is Legal: The Nation's Kratom Problem Is More Complicated—And More Harmful—Than It Seems, Elizabeth Walsh

Capstones

This two-part health and science investigative piece reports how kratom and its offshoots have quietly fueled a lucrative and legal addiction epidemic for the last decade. While kratom’s derivative alkaloid 7-hyrdoxymitragynine made headlines this year and as the DEA is poised to ban the strong derivative, “natural” kratom and other kratom-derived products will remain. This piece tracks the history of the 'gas‑station opioid' crisis in the U.S. over ten years: what was thought to be an innocuous southeast Asian supplement has become multi-billion dollar industry built on gray‑area laws, marketed falsehoods, and regulatory loophooles.

Part 1: The ‘Gas Station Opioid’ …

Magic Mushrooms As Medicine: What The United States Can Learn From Jamaica’S Unregulated Psilocybin Industry As Fda Approval Nears, Kyle Spohn

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

In 1970, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act and swiftly placed psilocybin (the active chemical in “magic mushrooms”) under Schedule I—the strictest level of regulation withheld for substances with “no currently accepted medical use.” While the United States has maintained this rigid framework, Jamaica has taken the opposite approach. Psilocybin was never listed under Jamaica’s Dangerous Drugs Act, and remains unregulated. In recent decades, research has shown that psilocybin, when administered in controlled settings, can effectively treat depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric conditions. In response, the Jamaican government has not only preserved psilocybin’s legality but has encouraged research and industry …

Leveling The Playing Field? Exploring The Moral Ambiguity Of The Private Attorney General Model, Nathan Heastie

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Johnson & Johnson’s market cap is twice the GDP of Oklahoma. So, when Oklahoma hauled Johnson & Johnson and other behemoth pharmaceutical companies into state court for their participation in the opioid epidemic, Big Pharma’s resources created a David v. Goliath situation. Against all odds, Oklahoma stood toe-to-toe with Big Pharma and brought home more than $650 million in settlement funds.

Oklahoma’s success would be otherwise impossible without the assistance of three private law firms serving the role of “private attorneys general.” The State signed contingency fee arrangements with the firms, transferring the financial burden of litigation from the State …

Oh, Oh, No Ozempic: The Dangers Of Ozempic’S Direct-To-Consumer Advertisements, Taylor Blicht

Journal of Law and Policy

On average, viewers are exposed to about nine drug advertisements a day. Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising (“DTCPA”) is when pharmaceutical companies market their prescription drugs straight to consumers. Ozempic is a weekly injection of semaglutide, developed by the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk in 2017 for adults with Type-2 diabetes. After people started to show signs of weight loss on Ozempic, Novo Nordisk created Wegovy in June 2021, targeting towards people with obesity. Due to the exploding weight-loss effect of Wegovy, celebrities and social media influencers started taking the medication and sharing their weight loss journeys. DTCPA can be harmful to consumers …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Living Property, Joseph William Singer

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court has increasingly defined property rights that are per se exempt from regulation in the absence of compensation, most recently in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (2021) and Tyler v. Hennepin County (2023). The Court claims that it can identify property rights that are categorically protected from regulation by reference to history, tradition, and precedent. Yet this approach is oddly ahistorical; it is inconsistent with the fact that property law changed dramatically over U.S. history, as well as varying tremendously among the states. It is also inconsistent with the historical context of the Founding era. At that time, …

Redefining Section 230 Immunity, Lucas Dini

Seattle University Law Review

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has provided broad immunity to online platforms for third-party content which was the foundation for the internet's growth. However, the rise in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to produce algorithms to curate content to users of online services has blurred the line between being a passive host of third party content and active editorial control. This Note examines the legal, policy, and constitutional implications of applying Section 230 immunity to platforms that use AI to curate and promote third-party content. This analysis argues that algorithmic promotion of third-party content constitutes a platform's …

Overcrowding The System: Rethinking Juvenile Justice In Washington State, Mckenna White

Seattle University Law Review

The recent crisis at Green Hill School highlights the detrimental consequences of severe overcrowding in Washington State’s Juvenile Rehabilitation system—a problem exacerbated by the implementation of the JR to 25 legislation. This Note argues that the juvenile rehabilitation system, which is currently struggling to manage a wide age range of offenders, necessitates a fundamental rethinking of juvenile justice practices. By examining neurological research indicating continued brain development into the mid-twenties, along with the high prevalence of trauma among justice-involved youth, this Note proposes the creation of a dedicated third system of care within the Department of Children, Youth, and Families …

Addressing The Root Of Housing Insecurity: Washington Should Divest From “Crime-Free” Housing Programs, Sarah Cerdena

Seattle University Law Review

Crime-Free Rental Housing Properties (CFRHPs) have proven to be an ineffective and inequitable approach to public safety. Often, tenants in these properties are evicted—at times, extrajudicially—as a result of conduct that does not rise to violations of their lease provisions, much less criminal behavior. By placing extraordinary power in the hands of local law enforcement to carry out these ordinances, CFRHPs predictably pose significant harm to Black and Latinx communities, survivors of domestic violence, disabled tenants, and low-income tenants generally. Recently, the Washington State Supreme Court grappled with the tensions arising between CFRHPs and the enforcement of Washington landlord-tenant law. …

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

Esg Investing Breaches Erisa Fiduciary Duties? A Closer Look At Spence V. American Airlines, Inc., Eric Chin-Ru Chang

Seattle University Law Review

In Spence v. American Airlines, Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas found that American Airlines breached its fiduciary duties due to BlackRock’s ESG investing practices. Contrary to some reports suggesting that the ruling prohibits ESG investing under ERISA, a closer look at the ruling shows that the court only targeted American Airlines’ failure to manage conflicts of interest appropriately, rather than the legality of ESG investing itself. In light of the intensifying ESG backlash in the United States, this Article cautions against further restrictive measures on ESG investing. Such measures would exacerbate the widening …