Health Law and Policy Commons^™

21 In The 21st—An Evaluation Of The Tobacco Regulation Trend, Casey Kellum

St. Mary's Law Journal

Tobacco regulation persists as a controversial issue both legally and politically in the United States. Throughout American history, states rely on local legislation to provide adequate protection to consumers of tobacco products, as “Big Tobacco” targets consumers for its addictive product. One of the most recent amendments in this arena is the state by state decision to raise the minimum legal sales age for tobacco to twenty-one.

Despite rigorous regulation of tobacco products in the United States, however, tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable deaths in the country. These “Tobacco 21” ordinances come at a critical time when the …

Introduction: Health And Human Rights, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The American health care industry is killing us, and the casualties are mounting daily. Instead of saving lives, it is more often taking them, and not only by failing to seriously confront the coronavirus pandemic and racism in the industry, but also by the way health care is financed.

Facilitating Access To A Covid-19 Vaccine Through Global Health Law, Lawrence O. Gostin, Safura Abdool Karim, Benjamin Mason Meier

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This column explores the global health law reforms necessary to progressively realize universal access to a future COVID-19 vaccine. We begin by explaining the importance of global health law in the distribution of essential vaccines as a determinant of public health. The column then turns to examine the human rights foundations of global health law, conceptualizing vaccination access as a universal human right. We find that it will be crucial to develop legal commitments to ensure vaccine access prior to a scientific breakthrough, analyzing the legal barriers that impede global access and the global health law reforms necessary to facilitate …

Covid-19 And Domestic Travel Restrictions, Katherine Florey

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

The strict controls that many jurisdictions, including most U.S. states, established to contain the COVID-19 pandemic have proven difficult to sustain over time, and most places are moving to lift them. Internationally, many plans to ease lockdowns have retained some form of travel restrictions, including the “green zone” plans adopted by France and Spain, which limit travel between regions with widespread community transmission of COVID-19 and those without it. By contrast, most U.S. states lifting shelter-in-place orders have opted to remove limits on movement as well. This Essay argues that this situation is unwise: it tends to create travel patterns …

The Shibboleth Of Human Rights In Public Health, Lawrence O. Gostin, Tamira Daniely, Hanna E. Huffstetler, Caitlin R. Williams, Benjamin Mason Meier

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Human rights discourse has greatly influenced advocacy for justice in public health. Yet, beyond rhetorical claims, how can we employ human rights to achieve the aspiration of health with justice? Without human rights education to support public health practice, human rights have become a shibboleth of public health—raised frequently to signal devotion to justice, but employed rarely in policy, programming, or practice. As advocates respond to the public health injustices of populist nationalism during an unprecedented pandemic, human rights education must be an essential foundation to hold governments accountable for implementing rights to safeguard public health.

Medicaid's Vital Role In Addressing Health And Economic Emergencies, Nicole Huberfeld, Sidney Watson

Faculty Scholarship

Medicaid plays an essential role in helping states respond to crises. Medicaid guarantees federal matching funds to states, which helps with unanticipated costs associated with public health emergencies, like COVID-19, and increases in enrollment that inevitably occur during times of economic downturn. Medicaid’s joint federal/state structure, called cooperative federalism, gives states significant flexibility within federal rules that allows states to streamline eligibility and expand benefits, which is especially important during emergencies. Federal emergency declarations give the secretary of Health and Human Services temporary authority to exercise regulatory flexibility to ensure that sufficient health care is available to meet the needs …

Universal Masking In The United States: The Role Of Mandates, Health Education, And The Cdc, Lawrence O. Gostin, I. Glenn Cohen, Jeffrey P. Koplan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends cloth face coverings in public settings to prevent spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Face coverings decrease the amount of infectious virus exhaled into the environment, reducing the risk an exposed person will become infected.1 Although many states and localities have ordered mask use, considerable variability and inconsistencies exist. Would a national mandate be an effective COVID-19 prevention strategy, and would it be lawful? Given the patchwork of state pandemic responses, should the CDC have enhanced funding and powers to …

Access To Treatment For People With Hiv: Do Latin American Governments Cover Medical Treatment For People With Hiv-Aids Who Cannot Afford It?, Veronica M. Belmonte

International Programs

I will analyze different Latin American Supreme Court rulings in order to demonstrate that governments are obliged to cover universal medical treatments for people with HIV. This is a worldwide issue and UNAIDS is constantly working to protect this vulnerable group of people. We can see this progress in the following statistics.

Expanding Access To Patents For Covid-19, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Two competing and linked sets of goals must be addressed when considering patent policy in response to a public health emergency. First is the allocation of existing resources among potential users (hospitals, patients, etc.); second is the creation of new technologies over time (innovation). Patents provide financial incentives to develop new technologies. Yet shortages of patented products often plague crisis response. In the case of COVID-19, allocative goals, particularly satisfying demand for patented medical products (e.g., vaccines, ventilators, PPE, and test kits), may be achieved through governmental interventions such as march-in and governmental use rights (compulsory licensing). But in cases …

Criminal Law In Crisis, Benjamin Levin

University of Colorado Law Review Forum

In this Essay, I offer a brief account of how the COVID-19 pandemic lays bare the realities and structural flaws of the carceral state. I provide two primary examples or illustrations, but they are not meant to serve as an exhaustive list. Rather, by highlighting these issues, problems, or (perhaps) features, I mean to suggest that this moment of crisis should serve not just as an opportunity to marshal resources to address the pandemic, but also as a chance to address the harsh realities of the U.S. criminal system. Further, my claim isn’t that criminal law is in some way …

Protecting The Rights Of People With Disabilities, Elizabeth Pendo

Chapters in Books

One in four Americans — a diverse group of 61 million people — experience some form of disability (Okoro, 2018). On average, people with disabilities experience significant disparities in education, employment, poverty, access to health care, food security, housing, transportation, and exposure to crime and domestic violence (Pendo & Iezzoni, 2019). Intersections with demographic characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and LGBT status, may intensify certain inequities. For example, women with disability experience greater disparities in income, education, and employment (Nosek, 2016), and members of underserved racial and ethnic groups with disabilities experience greater disparities in health status and access …

Multilateralism, Pushback, And Prospects For Global Engagement?, Michael Donald Kirby The Honourable

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In this article, the author draws on long engagement with multilateralism, both in domestic jurisdiction and international institutions. He describes the growth of post-War United Nations activities and the increasing impact of international law, including on universal human rights. He records international initiatives on global problems like HI V/AIDS and in individual countries, such as Cambodia and North Korea. He then describes recent examples of '"pushback" against multilateralism, especially on the part of the United States, the United Kingdom, some European countries, and Australia. He concludes with illustrations and reasons why the global community should remain optimistic about multilateralism, despite …

Addressing Transplant Tourism Problems And Proposed Solutions: Regulation Instead Of Prohibition, Colleen Naumovich

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Medical tourism, as defined by scholar Glenn Cohen, is "the travel of residents of one country to another country for treatment."' Transplant tourism, a type of medical tourism, is traveling abroad to purchase an organ for transplant. Although organ sale is currently illegal in every country except Iran, many countries-such as India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt-have thriving black markets for these goods. Organ transplants are often the only effective means of treating end state organ failure, and the demand for transplants is especially high in developed and middle-income countries. Shortages of available donors and organs, however, have caused …

Upholding Tribal Sovereignty And Promoting Tribal Public Health Capacity During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Heather Tanana, Aila Hoss

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Tribes are sovereign nations with authorities and responsibilities over their land and people. This inherent sovereign authority includes the right to promote and protect the health and welfare of their communities. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought national attention to the health inequities experienced by American Indian and Alaska Native communities. The sovereign legal authority for Tribes to respond to this pandemic has received less attention. This Chapter describes some, but not all, of the urgent legal issues impacting Tribal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It describes and identifies gaps in federal Indian health policies and highlights how Tribes have exercised …

Passport To Plastics: Cosmetic Surgery Tourism, Medical Malpractice, And The Automatic Establishment Of Personal Jurisdiction By Way Of The Joint Commission International, Elizabeth Astrup

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

For centuries, tourists have visited lands near and far in search of experiences unavailable in their home countries. From golfing the best courses in the world, to yoga retreats in remote locations, many tourist activities provide experiential opportunities along with health and wellness benefits. Currently, an increasing number of individuals are opting to cross international borders to receive medical treatments, often at reduced costs. While many scholars use the term health tourism to encompass all health and wellness travel purposes, this note uses the term medical tourism to distinguish tourism for the specific purpose of medical treatments or procedures. Medical …

Law Enforcement Welfare Checks And The Community Caretaking Exception To The Fourth Amendment Warrant Requirement, Andrea L. Steffan

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

J Mich Dent Assoc August 2020

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

Every month, The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association brings news, information, and features about Michigan dentistry to our state's oral health community and the MDA's 6,200+ members. No publication reaches more Michigan dentists!

In this issue, the reader will find the following original content:

• A cover story on "Antibiotic Guidelines for Dentistry: Who, When, What, Why, and How to Prescribe”.
• A feature, “Collaboration Is the Wave of the Future: Hospital-Based General Practice Residency”.
• “Taking Advantage of Secondary and Tertiary Evidence”, a feature in the JMDA’s series on evidence-based dentistry.
• “Statistics Tutorial Part III: Interpretation of Forest Plots from Meta …

What Will (Or Might?) Law School Look Like This Fall?: Teaching In The Midst Of A Pandemic, Ted Becker

Articles

January 2020 marked the start of a new semester for Michigan law schools. There was little reason to suspect it wouldn’t be a semester like any other: for 3Ls, the start of the stretch run to graduation; for 1Ls, a chance to begin anew after the stress of their first set of law school final exams; for law school faculty, administrators, and staff, a return to the excitement and activity of crowded hallways and classrooms after the brief interlude of winter break. Classes began and proceeded as normal.

Private Insurance Limits And Responses, Elizabeth Weeks

Scholarly Works

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed a number of existing flaws in the United States’ patchwork approach to paying for and providing access to medical care. Shelter-in-place orders, social distancing, and other public health strategies employed to address the pandemic spawned a global recession, causing rapid and high unemployment rates in many countries. The U.S. unemployment rate peaked in April 2020 at 14.7%, higher than in any previous period since World War II. The United States has long hewed an anachronistic policy of relying heavily on private employers to provide health insurance to a substantial portion of the population. Those who are …

Covid-19 Provincially Incarcerated Individuals - A Policy Report, Adelina Iftene

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This document is the result of an investigation into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on provincially incarcerated individuals and the Nova Scotia government’s responses relating to its prison population. It was supported by the Nova Scotia COVID-19 Health Research Coalition. In this memorandum, we describe the results of the investigation and propose solutions to better prepare for the second wave of COVID-19 or an alike pandemic situation.

New Jersey Overdose Prevention Act: Police Officers’ Experiences At A Drug Overdose Scene, Michael Ziarnowski

All Theses And Dissertations

The number of drug overdose deaths in the United States from opioids has led to national attention about the problem commonly described as the “opioid epidemic.” Federal and state policymakers have shifted from a hardline punitive approach to a rehabilitative approach in an attempt to save lives. Good Samaritan Laws (GSLs) and advances in medicine have been implemented differently in different states. For example, the enactment of the New Jersey Overdose Prevention Act (NJOPA) and the use of naloxone by first responders are ways that state officials try to save lives. However, there is limited research on the first responders’ …

Have The Aca’S Exchanges Succeeded? It’S Complicated, David K. Jones, Sarah H. Gordon, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

The fight over health insurance exchanges epitomizes the rapid evolution of health reform politics in the decade since the passage of the Affordable Care Act. The ACA's drafters did not expect the exchanges to be contentious; they would expand private insurance coverage to low- and middle-income individuals who were increasingly unable to obtain employer-sponsored health insurance. Yet, exchanges became one of the primary fronts in the war over Obamacare. Have the exchanges been successful? The answer is not straightforward and requires a historical perspective through a federalism lens. What the ACA has accomplished has depended largely on whether states were …

How Covid Has Illuminated The Pitfalls Of A Single-Payer System In The Us, Tamela J. White, Nicholas Wright

Marshall Journal of Medicine

Health care quality measures are impacted by resources invested into outcomes. COVID-19 has had a direct impact upon quality outcomes, the same illuminating just some of the problems with the concept of a single-payer health care system. The US government's inefficiencies in attempting to run the single-payer system known as IHS in context with its repeated failures in managing the COVID-19 crises along with the economic impact of the same, is but one call for strong leadership to dispel the myth that a single-payer system is a panacea for America.

The International Health Regulations (2005), The Threat Of Populism And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kumanan Wilson, Sam F. Halabi, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare weaknesses and major challenges in the international approach to managing public health emergencies. Populist sentiment is spreading globally as democratic nations are increasing their support for or electing governments that are perceived to represent “traditional” native interests. Measures need to be taken to proactively address populist sentiment when reviewing the IHR (2005) effectiveness in the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss how populism can impact the IHR (2005) and conversely how the IHR (2005) may be able to address populist concerns if the global community commits to helping states address public health …

Border Babies — Medical Ethics And Human Rights In Immigrant Detention Centers, Sondra S. Crosby, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Providing decent medical care for families in U.S. detention centers near the Mexican border has become exceedingly difficult over the past 2 years. Trauma was inflicted on migrants to deter others from attempting to enter the United States. A cornerstone of deterrence was the “zero tolerance” policy that forcibly separated children from their parents at the border. Photographs of children confined in cages horrified Americans, who demanded that the policy be rescinded. It was, but family separations continue and have been made even worse by the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP) — which the U.S. Supreme Court will most likely review …

Distracted Guardians Yield Deadly Results: When Memory Fails, Additional Regulations Can Protect Childen And Animals From Vehicular Heat-Stroke, Shannon Murphy

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

When the sun is shining bright on a scorching ninety-degree summer day, it takes less than an hour for tragedy to strike, even in the shade. Within less than sixty minutes, the temperature inside a closed vehicle will rise rapidly from the outdoor ninety-degree mark to upwards of more than one hundred and thirty degrees. As this temperature spike takes effect, any animal or child left in a vehicle will only have about fifteen minutes before being exposed to potentially deadly conditions.

While most of us think we are incapable of accidentally leaving our beloved child or companion in the …

Profiteering Off Public Health Crises: The Viable Cure For Congressional Insider Trading, Charles L. Slamowitz

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

This article takes an approachable, forward-thinking, and academic dive into congressional insider trading in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. After a confidential briefing by the Senate Health Committee warned of COVID-19, massive stock sell-offs by members of Congress and their spouses suddenly ensued. Some senators even publicly disparaged COVID-19’s viral effects while their own shares were being offloaded. By the time the American people were made aware of its dangers, vast investment holdings by congressional insiders had already been sold. Shockingly, it is unclear if congressional insiders trading on confidential coronavirus information are actually breaking the law. Congress …

Covid-19, Single-Sourced Diagnostic Tests, And Innovation Policy, Deb Chaarushena, Osman Moneer, Nicholson W. Price Ii

Articles

At the heart of the United States, disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic is a failure of diagnostic testing. That something so fundamental to medical care could be so botched evokes incredulity. From primary care offices to critical care settings, every patient encounter begins with a diagnostic workup. Diagnostic testing tools are key parts of the physician’s toolkit, and confirmatory testing is essential. But in the greatest public health challenge of the 21st century, the failures of diagnostic testing have been laid entirely bare.

Health Justice Is Racial Justice: A Legal Action Agenda For Health Disparities, Sheila Foster, Yael Cannon, Maxwell Gregg Bloche

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Acknowledging the urgency of both health and racial justice in this moment, Sheila Foster, Yael Cannon, and M. Gregg Bloche set forth a legal agenda to fight the health effects of racism in housing, policing, the environment, and other areas.

Choosing Affordable Health Insurance, Govind Persad

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The Affordable Care Act ("ACA") made health insurance accessible to many. Yet unaffordable insurance still abounds. This Article proposes a strategy for improving affordability that enables health insurance purchasers to choose, within reasonable limits, which treatments their insurance covers. After critiquing recently proposed strategies for improving affordability and reviewing past legal scholarship on content choice in health insurance, this Article introduces the "Affordable Choices" framework. This framework regulates choice in four ways. First, health plans should only exclude treatments whose merits are subject to reasonable disagreement among patients and physicians. Second, plans should appeal to purchasers' health-related values- values about …