Health Law and Policy Commons^™

E-Racing Tobacco & Nicotine-Related Health Disparities, Michael Ulrich

Faculty Scholarship

In the past, tobacco companies used targeted advertising to integrate menthol cigarettes and addict the Black community, generating tobacco-related health disparities. As Juul has come under attack, they have utilized the tobacco playbook to protect itself and deflect criticism by donating to a historically Black medical school and recruiting leaders in the Black community. This helped to create a "Black shield" for menthol cigarettes, which are only now at risk of being regulated, and has the potential to do the same in the vape industry. If proactive steps are not undertaken, health tobacco-related health disparities will continue.

Expanding Medicaid In The Postpartum Period, Madison P. Harrell

Law Student Publications

This Comment will discuss how the current Medicaid law is insufficient to address the issue of disappointing maternal health outcomes in the United States and how the federal government should begin to remedy the problem. First, I will shed light on the maternal health crisis in the United States, before discussing the history of pregnancy and postpartum Medicaid coverage. Then, I will outline the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, the subsequent court battle over its constitutionality, and the effects of that decision on the current landscape of pregnancy and postpartum Medicaid coverage. Finally, I will detail my proposal for …

A Critique Of Expertise For Health Law, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

A health justice approach requires a progressive critique of expertise. This article considers two recent high-profile cases – the mask mandate and medication abortion -- to understand how we should think the mobilization of expertise in the context of public health law. Following from this, the article offers news ways to better understand how to think of the relationship between health law, expertise, and politics.

Identity By Committee, Scott Skinner-Thompson

Publications

Even in school districts with relatively permissive approaches to defining and embodying gender, the identities of transgender and gender variant students are often governed by complex regulatory protocols. Ensuring that a student is able to live their gender at school can involve input from a host of purported stakeholders including medical providers, mental health professionals, school administrators, the student’s parents, and even the broader community. In essence, trans and gender variant students’ identities are governed by committee, which reduces students’ control over their lives, inhibits self-determination, constricts the scope of permissible gender identities, subjects them to incredible degrees of state …

A Proportionality-Based Framework For Government Regulation Of Digital Tracing Apps In Times Of Emergency, Sharon Bassan

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Times of emergency present an inherent conflict between the public interest and the preservation of individual rights. Such times require granting emergency powers to the government on behalf of the public interest and relaxing safeguards against government actions that infringe rights. The lack of theoretical framework to assess governmental decisions in times of emergency leads to a polarized and politicized discourse about potential policies, and often, to public distrust and lack of compliance.

Such a discourse was evident regarding Digital Tracing Apps (“DTAs”), which are apps installed on cellular phones to alert users that they were exposed to people who …

Environmental Racism In Baltimore: A Geographical Study Into The Connections Between Environmental Toxins And Public Health, Genevieve Block

Honors Theses

An investigation into the relationship between environmental toxins and environmental racism in Baltimore City, Maryland.

Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health And The Post-Roe Landscape, Yvonne F. Lindgren

Faculty Works

This Article examines some of the important takeaways of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision and the likely reverberations it will have on other areas of law and reproductive healthcare more broadly. The Article proceeds in three parts. Part I examines the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions to consider what they reveal about the new standard of review for abortion, the shift in power among the members of the Court itself, as well as what the opinion signals might come next. Part II explores the future of abortion in a post-Roe landscape as the abortion rights movement moves from …

Fertility Care: Essential Or Non-Essential? Lessons From The Covid-19 Pandemic, Rebecca S. Feinberg

Scholarly Works

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in an effort to allocate medical resources towards the anticipated influx of patients infected with the novel virus, many non-essential healthcare services were temporarily paused. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine led the move to halt infertility care in all but the most extreme cases. This cessation of infertility care, compounded by the unknown duration of this recommendation, added to the already high level of stress and anxiety that fertility patients experience and in cases of advanced maternal age or diminished ovarian reserve potentially resulted in suboptimal clinical outcomes. There was vocal disagreement …

Battle For Ohio, Case Western Reserve University School Of Law, Law-Medicine Center

Case Law-Med

• Message from the co-directors
• Physician fidelity
• Newsworthy expertise
• Expanding practice and reassessing ethics
• Meeting demand
• Series of events
• Battle for Ohio
• Appointed to serve
• Prolific professor
• Externship experience
• A vital community service
• Championing diversity and patient rights through policy

Take It With A Grain (Or More) Of Salt: Why Industry-Backed Dietary Guidelines Fail Americans And How To Fix Them, Caroline Farrington

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The U.S. Dietary Guidelines lack oversight and accountability. The result: Guidelines that reflect food industry interests instead of modern science. This deleterious guidance goes on to govern federally-subsidized food assistance programs and to influence dietary choices throughout the private sector and private life. Ultimately, the Guidelines significantly contribute to the endemic chronic disease they seek to address.

The Guidelines Advisory Committee is notoriously rife with conflicts of interest, and thus most Guidelines scholarship has focused on reforming the Committee. But the 2015 and 2020 Guidelines show that these reforms are insufficient and agency-level change is necessary. In 2015, the Committee …

Why Govern Broken Tools?, Ryan Calo

Articles

In Assessing the Governance of Digital Contact Tracing in Response to COVID-19: Results of a Multi-National Study, Brian Hutler et al. ably compare two approaches to the governance of digital contract tracing (DCT). In this brief essay, I want to examine to what extent governance actually played a meaningful role in the failure of DCT. If DCT failed primarily for other reasons, then the authors’ normative suggestion to pursue “a new governance approach … for designing and implementing DCT technology going forward” may be misplaced.

An Immigration Solution For Improving Rural Healthcare, Kit Johnson

Faculty Articles

If you are one of the more than 249 million people who live in urban areas of the United States, more than 80% of the U.S. population, you’ve likely never thought much about your physical proximity to a doctor. Primary care physicians and medical specialists abound in urban America. But if you are among the more than 59 million people who live in rural areas of the country, you may well know the struggle of finding primary care, a specialist, or a dentist. That is because there is a worrying shortage of medical professionals in rural America. There is a …

What Should Ethical And Strategic Employers Do About Covid-19 Vaccines?, Dale B. Thompson, Susan A. Suspina, Katherina G. Pattit, Dawn R. Swink

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

American Motherhood - A Taking, Nicole Knight

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

The Duties Of Occupying Powers In Relation To The Prevention And Control Of Contagious Diseases Through The Interplay Between International Humanitarian Law And The Right To Health, Dr. Marco Longobardo

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article explores the rules governing the prevention and control of contagious diseases in occupied territory under international law. Although the Article refers to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, its scope is broader and encompasses instances of state practice that have occurred over the last two centuries. After a careful analysis of the relevant treaties and episodes of state practice, the Article concludes that occupying powers have duties under international humanitarian law and international human rights law to prevent and control contagious diseases, through cooperating with the local authorities and bringing the necessary medical supplies in the occupied territory. The Article …

Points Of No Return: How The Ninth Circuit’S New Voluntary Undertaking Doctrine Changes Return-To-Play In Sports, Sam C. Ehrlich

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Review: Wendy A. Bach, Prosecuting Poverty, Criminalizing Care, Anna Arons

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

“Lock ’em up, clean ’em up, and start over” (145). This is how a drug treatment coordinator in a court in East Tennessee sums up her approach to provisioning substance use services to poor Tennesseans. If someone needs treatment, the most expeditious route—often, the only route—is through the criminal legal system. First, the court administrator casts about for a criminal charge, hopefully a “little charge,” that the person can be arrested on. Then, once they are arrested, they can be brought to jail where they can detox, with no medical supervision and no medication to ease the detox. And …

Artificial Intelligence In Canadian Healthcare: Will The Law Protect Us From Algorithmic Bias Resulting In Discrimination?, Bradley Henderson, Colleen M. Flood, Teresa Scassa

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In this article, we canvas why AI may perpetuate or exacerbate extant discrimination through a review of the training, development, and implementation of healthcare-related AI applications and set out policy options to militate against such discrimination. The article is divided into eight short parts including this introduction. Part II focuses on explaining AI, some of its basic functions and processes, and its relevance to healthcare. In Part III, we define and explain the difference and relationship between algorithmic bias and data bias, both of which can result in discrimination in healthcare settings, and provide some prominent examples of healthcare-related AI …

Eviscerating Patent Scope, Shahrokh Falati

Articles & Chapters

The scope of patent claims directed to inventions in the field of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology has been stumped by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s recent jurisprudence on 35 U.S.C. § 112. Specifically, the application of a heightened test for enablement of claims to a genus of compounds with functional limitations or a genus of therapeutic antibodies, coupled with an increasingly broader application of the written description doctrine, has resulted in considerable uncertainty in the biopharmaceutical industry. The Federal Circuit’s shift in interpreting 35 U.S.C. § 112 contravenes the statute and Supreme Court precedent by splitting the singular …

Making Sex Work Safe: Using A Consensus-Based Approach To Create Meaningful Policy For Sex Workers, Alexandra Sandler

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Sex work has been described as the world's oldest profession, yet it has remained nearly unchanged in the U.S., largely due to the conflation between sex work and sex trafficking. The term "sex worker" refers to a person who willingly works in the industry to make a living. Sex trafficking, though, is a form of modern-day slavery, in which an individual performs commercial sex as a result of force, fraud, or coercion. The conflation of sex work and sex trafficking in the U.S. has resulted in oppressive policies that undermine the rights and safety of sex workers. With the exception …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

A Free Appropriate Public Education: Examining What "Appropriate" Means For Students With Disabilities In A Global Pandemic, Bailey Kadian

Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine

No abstract provided.

Unpacking The Influence Of Islamic Religious Culture And Individual Religious Affiliation On Testing Hiv-Positive, Brittany Hayes, Amy Adamczyk

Publications and Research

The distribution of HIV cases varies cross-nationally. We separate the influences of Islam at the macro-and micro-levels to understand the role of religion in shaping the spread of HIV. Drawing on biomarker data from the Demographic and Health Surveys, we construct a multilevel database (Individual N= 568,476; Country N= 30). We examine a series of national-and individual-level predictors that may mediate the relationship between Islam and testing HIV-positive. Individual religious affiliation and proportion Muslim retained their risk-reducing effects even when accounting for a range of mediators and suppressors. Islam has a sui generis effect on testing HIV-positive.

Telemedicine Scams, Katrice B. Copeland

Faculty Scholarship

Telemedicine emerged as a lifeline during the COVID-10 pandemic. Although the technology existed long before the pandemic, its use was limited due to strict government regulations that limited reimbursement for telemedicine visits. In response to the pandemic, the Government waiver many of its restrictions for the duration of the Public Health Emergency. These changes fueled the growth of telemedicine.

The problem, however, is that telemedicine makes it easier to conduct fraud on a larger scale because without in-person visits, medical providers can reach many more beneficiaries in a short period of time. Thus, the size and scale of typical health …

Exclusion Cycles: Reinforcing Disparities In Medicine, Ana Bracic, Shawneequa L. Callier, Nicholson Price

Articles

Minoritized populations face exclusion across contexts from politics to welfare to medicine. In medicine, exclusion manifests in substantial disparities in practice and in outcome. While these disparities arise from many sources, the interaction between institutions, dominant-group behaviors, and minoritized responses shape the overall pattern and are key to improving it. We apply the theory of exclusion cycles to medical practice, the collection of medical big data, and the development of artificial intelligence in medicine. These cycles are both self-reinforcing and other-reinforcing, leading to dismayingly persistent exclusion. The interactions between such cycles offer lessons and prescriptions for effective policy.

Your Body, Your Cells? Direct-To-Consumer Marketing Of Autologous Stem Cell Therapies In The United States, Japan, And Australia, Kathleen C. Laird

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Stem cell tourism has relocated; patients in search of stem cell therapies to treat nearly any disease can find clinics selling miracle cures without traveling beyond their national borders. Businesses marketing unproven autologous stem cell therapies are now plentiful in highly regulated, wealthy countries, including the United States, Japan, and Australia. Despite regulatory oversight of stem cell therapies and strong support for scientific innovation in these countries, the internet and social media have facilitated the rapid growth and success of a new industry selling unproven treatments directly to consumers. Clinics selling unproven autologous stem cell therapies have succeeded by developing …

Smoke Without Fire: Employing Mediation To Create Workplace Accommodations For Medical Cannabis Use By Disabled Armed Forces Veterans, Brendan William Potocki

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Over the course of a nearly twelve-year career in the Air Force, which included multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, Stephen Otero experienced unspeakable trauma. He has the scars-both visible and invisible-to prove it. Despite being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder ("PTSD") in 2008, Otero once again placed country before self and reaffirmed his commitment to serving the United States by agreeing to complete another tour of duty. During this final deployment, Otero sustained extensive abdominal injuries as a result of a suicide bombing attack.

Fourth Amendment Issues And Covid-19 Tracking, Brooke A. Banks

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The note argues that the special needs doctrine does not justify warrantless government access to cell site location information (CSLI) for COVID-19 tracking, as individual privacy interests outweigh public health benefits. It advocates for voluntary, privacy-protective measures, such as opt-in apps, to balance privacy and pandemic response.

Protecting Patients From Physicians Who Inflict Harm: New Legal Resources For State Medical Boards, Elizabeth Pendo, Tristan Mcintosh, Heidi Walsh, Kari Baldwin, James M. Dubois

All Faculty Scholarship

State medical boards (SMBs) protect the public by ensuring that physicians uphold appropriate standards of care and ethical practice. Despite this clear purpose, egregious types of wrongdoing by physicians are alarmingly frequent, harmful, and under-reported. Even when egregious wrongdoing is reported to SMBs, it is unclear why SMBs sometimes fail to promptly remove seriously offending physicians from practice. Legal and policy tools that are targeted, well-informed, and actionable are urgently needed to help SMBs more effectively protect patients from egregious wrongdoing by physicians.

Past reviews of SMB performance have identified features of SMBs associated with higher rates of severe disciplinary …