Health Law and Policy Commons^™

The Hardest Drug: Heroin And Public Policy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Hardest Drug: Heroin and Public Policy by John Kaplan

Employee Selection Base On Susceptibility To Occupational Illness, Mark A. Rothstein

Michigan Law Review

This Article attempts to compile the latest information available concerning this difficult problem. Part I reviews the scientific literature, explaining the biological basis of increased risk of occupational disease. Part II explores the efforts of various employers to incorporate this research into their personnel practices. Part III surveys the legal response to these practices. Employees may challenge medical screening on a variety of theories, most of which were not designed to deal with the problem of susceptibility to occupational disease. Not surprisingly, none of the approaches offers an entirely satisfactory response to the problem. This Article offers no clear answers. …

Who Speaks For The Child: The Problems Of Proxy Consent, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Who Speaks for the Child: The Problems of Proxy Consent edited by Willard Gaylin and Ruth Macklin

Deducting The Cost Of Smoking Cessation Programs Under Internal Revenue Code Section 213, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that enrollment fees for a smoking cessation program should be classified as deductible medical expenses. Part I defends this conclusion without questioning the accepted interpretation of section 213(e). Recent medical evidence indicates that the nicotine addiction that cessation program patients seek to break is itself a disease. And even prior to the onset of more serious health consequences, sustained cigarette smoking significantly impairs the functioning of the lungs and heart. Under this analysis, enrollment fees should be deductible as expenses for the treatment of an existing disease or defect, and as "amounts paid . . . for …

Regulating America, Regulating Sweden: A Comparative Study Of Occupational Safety And Health Policy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Regulating America, Regulating Sweden: A Comparative Study of Occupational Safety and Health Policy by Steven Kelman

Mental Health Law: Major Issues, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Mental Health Law: Major Issues by David B. Wexler

Conscience And Convenience: The Asylum And Its Alternatives In Progressive America, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Conscience and Convenience: The Asylum and Its Alternatives in Progressive America by David J. Rothman

Regulation Through The Looking Glass: Hospitals, Blue Cross, And Certificate-Of-Need, Sallyanne Payton, Rhoda M. Powsner

Michigan Law Review

A clear focus on the commitment of the public health and hospital establishments to the large teaching hospital and their belief in rationalizing the health care system through community-based planning allows us to understand the ideas and institutions that have produced our present system of hospital regulation. It can also help us to understand the structure and behavior of the hospital industry and can illuminate current controversies over health care policy.

What follows is a narrative account of the development of regional planning and certificate-of-need legislation. As part of that story, we trace the evolution of the Blue Cross, explain …

Resolving Doctor-Patient Conflicts, Bernard L. Diamond

Michigan Law Review

A review of Taking Care of Strangers: The Rule of Law in Doctor-Patient Relations by Robert A. Burt

The Abortion-Funding Cases And Population Control: An Imaginary Lawsuit (And Some Reflections On The Uncertain Limits Of Reproductive Privacy), Susan Frelich Appleton

Michigan Law Review

Two issues are before us today: (I) the meaning of the term "medically necessary" in a public hospital's charter and (II) the constitutionality of state action that provides free medical treatment to indigent pregnant women seeking an abortion but denies them such assistance for prenatal care and childbirth. On the basis of recent Supreme Court authority, we find that such action violates neither the hospital's charter nor the United States Constitution.

The Politics Of Cancer, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Politics of Cancer by Samuel S. Epstein

Regulation Of Electroconvulsive Therapy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Regulation of ECT has generally focused on whether the patient or his representative effectively consented to the treatment. The highly intrusive nature of ECT and the unique circumstances of those patients who are likely to receive it create particularly difficult legal issues concerning the validity of the patient's consent. This Note will examine the various methods that are available to protect the rights of patients for whom ECT is proposed. After briefly explaining the nature of the therapy, the Note will discuss the efficacy of judicial remedies with respect to both competent and incompetent patients. It will argue that, because …

Judicial Review Of Private Hospital Activities, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note will examine the judicial review of hospitals under state law and the fourteenth amendment and will suggest that unless certain clear requirements for "publicness" are met, judicial restraint based on the failure of legislative institutions to mandate judicial interference is the better course.

The Sale Of Human Body Parts, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Section I of this Note briefly surveys the state of the transplant art; section II outlines the inadequacy of the present human parts supply system; section III discusses some of the alternatives advanced as solutions to the shortage; section IV discusses the market system alternative; section V considers existing legal doctrines that may impede the establishment of such a system; and section VI reviews tort and tax law problems associated with the market concept.

Supplying Organs For Transplantation, Jesse Dukeminier Jr

Michigan Law Review

The possibility that a market for organs will develop arises as a result of recent scientific successes in interchanging human parts and the consequent imbalance that has arisen between the quantity of organs supplied and the quantity demanded. Currently, and in the foreseeable future, unless our laws are changed, the quantity supplied will not equal the quantity demanded at a zero price. When useful items are in short supply in a market economy monetary inducements to increase the supply are commonly offered. The question then arises whether society should permit such inducements in order to ensure a satisfactory supply of …

Constitutional Law--Police Power--Michigan Statute Requiring Motorcyclists To Wear Protective Helmets Held Unconstitutional, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The effects of the helmet decisions on the law in general may be substantial. On the one hand, if a helmet statute is held constitutional, inroads could be made upon personal liberty; the legislature might rely on similar strained and unproved relationships to the general welfare in order to justify regulations impinging upon other areas of individual conduct. On the other hand, to hold such a statute unconstitutional may require the judiciary to interfere unreasonably with the legislature's conception of public welfare. In light of these considerations, courts dealing with challenges to such regulations in the future should pay closer …

Hospital Emergency Service And The Open Door, Leonard S. Powers

Michigan Law Review

This Article will focus on the emerging duty of hospital emergency rooms to treat patients seeking their aid.

Disposition Of The Irresponsible: Protection Following Commitment, Travis H. Lewin

Michigan Law Review

Each year more of our fellow citizens are involuntarily committed to a mental institution of one sort or another than are incarcerated for the commission of a crime. To those committed, the walls and barred windows of the hospital, as well as the treatment and mode of living, are probably not significantly different from those of a prison. This is particularly the case with those confined for treatment by court order or by some special statutory procedure following acquittal of a crime on grounds of insanity. Yet these mentally ill, even after perpetrating what would otherwise have been a criminal …

Prescriptions Issued To Deceased And Fictitious Patients Are Forgeries Under New York Penal Law Although Signed With True Name Of Issuing Doctor--People V. Klein, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, a licensed New York physician, issued five prescriptions for narcotics, signing his own name and giving his correct address and narcotics registry number. On four of the prescriptions deceased patients were represented as the intended recipients of the drugs; on the fifth the name of a fictitious patient was used. The defendant used these forms to obtain the prescribed narcotics and administered them to an addict. He was convicted of ten counts of third-degree forgery under sections 889-b and 881 of the New York Penal Law. On appeal, held, affirmed. Prescriptions issued to deceased and fictitious patients are …

"Imminent Danger Of Addiction" As A Ground For Involuntary Commitment In California--People V. Victor, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Since the passage of the Harrison Act in 1914, the principal means of controlling drug addiction in the United States have been rigid controls on importation and domestic production of narcotics, and increasingly heavy penal sanctions for the illegal possession or sale of addicting drugs. Effective as these measures have been in restricting the domestic traffic in narcotics and driving up the price of illegal drugs, long prison sentences have not been successful in either deterring or curing drug addiction. Recognizing the unique psychological and physiological aspects of addiction, the United States Public Health Service established hospitals in the 1930's …

The Unborn Plaintiff, David A. Gordon

Michigan Law Review

It is almost twenty-five years since Professor Winfield's article "The Unborn Child" was published. The development of this area of the law during the past quarter century is probably summed up in the distinction between that title and the one to this article.

State Action, State Law, And The Private Hospital, Mary Mandana Long

Michigan Law Review

On March 2, 1964, the United States Supreme Court denied a petition to review by certiorari the decision in Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hosp. By declining to review the case the Supreme Court left unaffected the holding of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that two private hospitals which had participated in the Hill-Burton program of federal hospital assistance were sufficiently involved with governmental action, both state and federal, to bring their conduct within the fifth and fourteenth amendment prohibitions against racial discrimination. This decision will probably affect all of the 3,346 private, non-profit hospitals in …

Courts-Scope Of Authority-Sterilization Of Mental Defectives, William R. Warnock

Michigan Law Review

Respondent, age nineteen, appeared before the probate court of Muskingum County, Ohio, upon an affidavit filed by her mother alleging the child to be feeble-minded and in need of medical treatment. Results of psychological tests were presented at the hearing, revealing that respondent had an intelligence quotient of thirty-six and was therefore a feeble-minded person within the statutory definition. Respondent had had one illegitimate child, for whom she was unable to provide even rudimentary care or financial support, and was physically capable of bearing more children. Taking judicial notice that the state mental hospitals were then overcrowded and unable to …

Sales-Implied Warranty-Merchantable Quality Of Tobacco Products, John E. Mogk

Michigan Law Review

Decedent's widow and the administrator of his estate brought a consolidated suit against the American Tobacco Company on six theories of liability for the death of decedent, allegedly caused by lung cancer purportedly contracted from the smoking of defendant's cigarettes. At the close of plaintiff's evidence, the district court directed a verdict for defendant on all counts except those of implied warranty and negligence. The jury determined that, although defendant's cigarettes were the cause of decedent's lung cancer and resultant death, defendant had no means of knowing that the cigarettes would cause cancer. On appeal of the implied warranty charge …

Negligence-Res Lpsa Loquitur-Application To Medical Malpractice Actions: 1951-196, Peter D. Byrnes S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Res ipsa loquitur, "the thing speaks for itself," has been the subject matter of extensive legal literature since its inception almost a century ago. It is now well settled that res ipsa loquitur is no more than an inference of negligence from circumstantial evidence. The doctrine is applicable if an act or occurrence is of the type that ordinarily would not take place without negligence, assuming the plaintiff has himself been passive, and if the instrumentality causing the harm is within the exclusive control of the defendant. The application of res ipsa loquitur to the medical malpractice area has …

The Extension Of Insurance Subrogation, Spencer L. Kimball, Don A. Davis

Michigan Law Review

When an insured loss occurs under circumstances that make a third person liable to reimburse the insured, there are various possible ways to adjust the loss among the three persons involved. One solution would permit the policyholder to recover both on the insurance and from the third person, i.e., would permit double recovery for the loss. A second solution would give the third person the benefit of the insurance by denying recovery from him. A third solution would subrogate the insurer to the policyholder's rights against the third person. Combinations of these three solutions are possible by applying sometimes …

Legal, Medical And Psychiatric Considerations In The Control Of Prostitution, B. J. George Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In common with other nations of the world the United States today as in the past is faced with the problem of controlling prostitution, particularly in urban areas. At one time or another states and cities in the United States have experimented with the classic methods of controlling prostitution: reglementation, segregation and repression. Reglementation of individual houses or prostitutes has never been carried out on a statewide basis in any state in the United States, though one can find instances in certain large cities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which city ordinances or de facto police regulations …

Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Influence Of Mental Illness On The Parole Return Process, David G. Davies S.Ed., John H. Hess M.D.

Michigan Law Review

Defendants in the criminal process are divided into rigidly exclusive categories of mental health. The competent to stand trial are first separated from the incompetent. Then the competent are divided on the basis of their mental state at the time of their acts between the "sane" and the "insane." As long as these rigid categories are administered in an adversary trial system, some misdirection of victims of serious mental illness into the penal system is almost inevitable. Even where mental illness might otherwise prevent conviction, those accused of non-capital felonies are not likely to raise the question, and few courts …

Group For The Advancement Of Psychiatry: Confidentiality And Privileged Communication In The Practice Of Psychiatry, Henry Weihofen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Confidentiality and Privileged Communication in the Practice of Psychiatry. Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry.

Havard: The Detection Of Secret Homicide, B. J. George Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Detection of Secret Homicide. By J. D. J. Havard.