Health Law and Policy Commons^™

A Goal-Oriented Understanding Of The Right To Health Care And Its Implications For Future Health Rights Litigation, Michael Da Silva

Dalhousie Law Journal

International human rights law recognizes a right to health. A majority of domestic constitutions recognize health-related rights. Many citizens believe that they have a moral right to health care. Some theorists agree. Yet the idea of a right to health care remains controversial. Specifying the nature of such a right invites more controversy. Indeed, most models of the right face persistent problems that threaten to undermine the conceptual coherence of a right to health care. This article accordingly sketches preliminary arguments for a new, goal-oriented model of the right to health care. It explains that the model avoids most of …

Imagining Global Health With Justice, Lawrence O. Gostin

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article offers a way to achieve global health with justice as a global health imperative. It is possible to have global health without justice, meaning that improvements in health outcomes could be achieved, but without a fair distribution of the benefits of good health. It is also possible to have justice without global health, where health outcomes are evenly distributed across the population but overall health is not improved. With this understanding, this article challenges current ways of understanding global health, and argues that absolute reductions in morbidity and premature mortality are not robust indicators of success in the …

Modernizing The Canada Health Act, Colleen M. Flood, Bryan Thomas

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Canada Health Act (CHA) was adopted in 1984, to shore up a health-care system conceptualized in the 1960s. Under the CHA, universal coverage is limited to "medicallynecessary" hospital and physician services, to the exclusion of vital goods and services such as outpatient pharmaceuticals, dental care, long-term care, and many mental health services. Inequities resulting from these gaps in public coverage are partly to blame for pushing Canada's health system to the bottom ofrecent international rankings. But there is more to modernizing Canada s health care system, we argue, than filling these gaps in universal coverage. Every major health system …

A Consumer Protection Perspective On Regulation For Healthier Eating, Barbara Von Tigerstrom

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article explores the potential for a consumer protection perspective to complement public health approaches in designing and justifying laws that aim to promote healthier eating, such as food labelling regulations or restrictions on marketing and advertising. Consumer protection and public health are distinct perspectives, but they share the goal of protecting health and both accept the need for regulation to protect important interests. Consumer protection objectives could be used to defend public health measures that are challenged as infringing rights or restricting trade. Insights from consumer law and scholarship could also contribute to discussions about when regulatory intervention to …

Body Of Preemption: Health Law Traditions And The Presumption Against Preemption, Elizabeth Mccuskey

Faculty Scholarship

Preemption plays a prominent role in health law, establishing the contours of coexistence for federal and state regulatory authorities over health topics as varied as medical malpractice, insurance coverage, drug safety, and privacy. When courts adjudicate crucial preemption questions, they must divine Congress's intent by applying substantive canons of statutory interpretation, including presumptions against preemption.

This Article makes three main contributions to health law and preemption doctrine. First, it identifies a variant of the presumption against preemption that applies to health laws-referred to throughout as the "tradition presumption." Unlike the general presumption against preemption on federalism grounds, courts base this …

Marine Law Symposium: Legal And Policy Approaches To Reduce Marine Debris In New England 11/04/2016, Roger Wiliams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Wearable Fitness Devices: Personal Health Data Privacy In Washington State, Steven Spann

Seattle University Law Review

Private entities are increasingly targeting individuals in the United States and around the world to gather personal data for such purposes as product development, market identification, and insurance risk assessment. While credit card records and online browsing histories have long been the medium through which this data is gathered, in more recent years, wearable fitness devices have added a new dimension to data production and collection. These devices are capable of gathering a significant amount of data regarding a person’s physical and physiological characteristics, thereby exposing these data producers to personal privacy infringement. Washington State lawmakers and citizens must be …

Newsroom: Horwitz On Marijuana Legalization 7/15/2016, John S. Kiernan, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Impeding Access To Quality Patient Care And Patient Rights: How Myriad Genetics' Gene Patents Are Unknowingly Killing Cancer Patients And How To Calm The Ripple Effect, Marisa Noelle Pins

Georgia Journal of Law & Technology

No abstract provided.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Achieving The Vision Of Global Health With Justice, Eric A. Friedman, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet” (UN General Assembly, 2015, September 25, preamble). So pronounces the 2030 Agenda, the United Nations declaration on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted on September 25, 2015, succeeding the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). If achieved, the SDGs will secure an improved level of health, development, and global justice. However, if the international community fails to live up to its commitments, an untold number of people will likely perish prematurely, people’s opportunities to thrive will be cut off, social …

An International Legal Framework To Address Antimicrobial Resistance, Steven J. Hoffman, Kevin Outterson, John-Arne Rottingen, Otto Cars, Charles Clift, Zain Rizvi, Fiona Rotberg, Göran Tomson, Anna Zorzet

Faculty Scholarship

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing threat to global health. Currently it accounts for approximately 700,000 deaths annually, but is predicted to cause as many as 10,000,000 deaths by 2050 if nothing is done to address it. To effectively deal with this problem three areas must be addressed simultaneously: access, conservation, and innovation. However, solving issues of access, conservation and innovation at the same time requires new coordination and financing mechanisms, some of which must be organized globally. This bulletin outlines the possible role that a binding international legal framework can play in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.

Sleep: A Human Rights Issue, Clark J. Lee

Homeland Security Publications

Recognition of sleep as a human rights issue by governmental and legal entities (as illustrated by recent legal cases in the United States and India) raises the profile of sleep health as a societal concern. Although this recognition may not lead to immediate public policy changes, it infuses the public discourse about the importance of sleep health with loftier ideals about what it means to be human. Such recognition also elevates the work of sleep researchers and practitioners from serving the altruistic purpose of improving human health at the individual and population levels to serving the higher altruistic purpose of …

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Instrumental And Transformative Medical Technology, Nicole Huberfeld

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article considers how medical technologies impact universality in health care. The universality principle, as embodied in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), eliminated widespread discriminatory practices and provided financial assistance to those otherwise unable to become insured—a democratizing federal act that was intended to stabilize health care policy nationwide. This Article posits that medical technology, as with all of medicine, can be universalizing or exclusionary and that this status roughly correlates to its being “instrumental technology” or “transformative technology.” Instrumental technology acts as a tool of medicine and often serves an existing aspect of health care; in …

On The Expansion Of “Welfare” And “Health” Under Medicaid, Laura D. Hermer

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

Medicaid was intended from its inception to provide financial access to health care for certain categories of impoverished Americans. While rooted in historical welfare programs, it was meant to afford the “deserving” poor access to the same sort of health care that other, wealthier Americans received. Yet despite this seemingly innocuous and laudable purpose, it has become a front in the political and social battles waged over the last several decades on the issues of welfare and the safety net. The latest battleground pits competing visions of Medicaid. One vision seeks to transform Medicaid from a health care program into …

Evaluating The Impact Of Remedial Authority: Adjudicative Tribunals In The Health Sector, Steven J. Hoffman, Lorne Sossin

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

Adjudicative tribunals play an important role in the health sector yet their actual influence, as part of the health system, remains undetermined. Most of the studies that have evaluated their work have focused on measures of accountability and independence, rather than the indicators of societal impact. As efforts to reform health systems continue internationally, it is crucial that we understand the benefits and costs of adjudicative tribunals for providers and consumers of heath. In this regard, empirically evaluating the impact of adjudicative tribunals will help inform policymaking through the collection of objective data. A strong and accountable health care system …

The Health Exception, Monica E. Eppinger

All Faculty Scholarship

The abortion doctrine laid out in Roe v. Wade permits a procedure necessary to preserve the life or the health of the pregnant woman, setting out what has come to be called the “life exception” and the “health exception.” This Article investigates the background and antecedents of the health exception, identifying three periods of formation and change up to the drafting of the Model Penal Code in 1959. It argues that theories of health lie at the heart of legal doctrine, shaping common-law treatment of abortion and persisting in nineteenth- and twentieth-century statutes. This account reveals origins of a health …

The Future Of The Cadillac Tax, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The Affordable Care Act includes a 40 percent excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health care coverage. Often referred to as the “Cadillac tax,” this excise tax is one of the most controversial elements of the Affordable Care Act.

Currently scheduled to go into effect in 2020, the Cadillac tax poses serious challenges and uncertainty for employers. On the one hand, recent estimates suggest that the Cadillac tax may hit as many as 20 percent of employers with health care plans in 2020. On the other hand, there is a serious question as to whether the tax will be repealed before …

Classification Standards For Health Information: Ethical And Practical Approaches, Craig Konnoth

Publications

Secondary health information research requires vast quantities of data in order to make clinical and health delivery breakthroughs. Restrictive policies that limit the use of such information threaten to stymie this research. While the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the new Common Rule permits patients to provide broad consent for the use of their information for research, that policy offers insufficient flexibility. This Article suggests a flexible consenting system that allows patients to consent to a range of privacy risks. The details of the system will be fleshed out in future work.

Law And Politics, An Emerging Epidemic: A Call For Evidence-Based Public Health Law, Michael Ulrich

Faculty Scholarship

As Jacobson v. Massachusetts recognized in 1905, the basis of public health law, and its ability to limit constitutional rights, is the use of scientific data and empirical evidence. Far too often, this important fact is lost. Fear, misinformation, and politics frequently take center stage and drive the implementation of public health law. In the recent Ebola scare, political leaders passed unnecessary and unconstitutional quarantine measures that defied scientific understanding of the disease and caused many to have their rights needlessly constrained. Looking at HIV criminalization and exemptions to childhood vaccine requirements, it becomes clear that the blame cannot be …

Adjudicating Risk: Aids, Crime, And Culpability, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

The AIDS epidemic continues to pose significant public health challenges, especially given that the spread of the virus outpaces the AIDS response.¹ Importantly, HIV continues to disproportionately impact socially and economically marginalized communities. In countries with concentrated epidemics,² it is racial minorities, sex workers, men who have sex with men, and drug users who face the brunt of the epidemic.³ In the United States, the data is startling⁴ : 44% of new infections were among African-Americans, and among African-Americans contracting HIV, 57% were among gay and bisexual men.⁵ In 2016, the CDC found that one …

In Re Guardianship Of Hailu, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 89 (Nov. 16, 2015), Adrienne Brantley

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that under NRS § 451.007 (the Uniform Determination of Death Act) the District court failed to consider whether the American Association of Neurology (AAN) guidelines adequately measure all functions of the entire brain and whether the guidelines are considered accepted medical standards by states that have adopted the Act.

The Case Of Beatriz: An Outcry To Amend El Salvador’S Abortion Ban, Jonathan Alvarez

Pace International Law Review

This Note examines the evolution of El Salvador’s existing penal code, specifically focusing on the abortion legislation. Further, it examines the significance of The Case of Beatriz and it suggests reform for El Salvador’s government to include exceptions in their penal code, similar to exceptions available in the United States, to provide women with access to safe abortions in extreme circumstances. Part II will illustrate the struggle that women face in El Salvador. Part III will briefly explore the historical background of the current Penal Code, exclusively the abortion ban. Part IV will also discuss women’s rights violated by the …

Denying The Dyad: How Criminalizing Pregnant Use Harms The Baby, Taxpayers And Vulnerable Women, Melissa Ballengee Alexander

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Who’S To Blame? Blame Attributions And Obesity-Related Law And Policy, Lindsey E. Wylie

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Obesity is a foremost public health concern that has received considerable attention. Because of this so-named “epidemic,” law-makers are challenged with implementing effective policies that the public supports. Little is known, however, about the antecedents and consequences of these policies—especially attributions of blameworthiness. Study 1 developed the Obesity Blame Attribution Scale (OBAS). Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that controllability, responsibility and dispositional blame were separate constructs and were part of a higher-order dispositional blame factor. Situational blame was a separate higher-order factor, not correlated with dispositional blame, consisting of blame toward the food industry and towards government policy. Using the OBAS, …

Improving Rhode Island’S Health Care System: Lessons From The Cuban Model, Sarah R. Moffitt

Senior Honors Projects

Improving Rhode Island’s health care system: lessons from the Cuban model

Cuba is world renowned for its health care system. In regards to international health crises, Cuba is a leader in sending workers abroad and training doctors from all over the world. Within its own borders, the Cuban model provides free access to all citizens in which every individual has a primary care provider. Cuba boasts high vaccination rates, a long life expectancy, low infant mortality rate, and a population that is one of the healthiest in the western hemisphere.

The purpose of this research project is to evaluate the …

Lessons From The Wellness Community To Address The Anti-Vaccination Movement, Barbara Zabawa

Faculty Works

The resurgence of the anti-vaccination movement presents significant challenges to public health efforts, as exemplified by the 2015 measles outbreak linked to Disneyland. This article explores strategies from the worksite wellness community that could help address vaccine hesitancy and resistance. The author examines historical legal precedents, like Jacobson v. Massachusetts, and recent state-level legislative efforts to tighten vaccination requirements.

The analysis underscores the limitations of authoritarian approaches to public health policy, which may provoke backlash without addressing underlying beliefs. This article advocates for engaging leadership, fostering diverse implementation teams, and integrating complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers into vaccination …

Hitech Act: Building An Infrastructure For Health Information Organizations And A New Health Care Delivery System, Kalle Deyette

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Challenges For People With Disabilities Within The Health Care Safety Net, Michael Ulrich

Faculty Scholarship

Medicare and Medicaid were passed to serve as safety nets for the country's most vulnerable populations, yet, the disabled community continues to be one whose health care needs are not being met. This group is all too frequently left to suffer health disparities due to cultural incompetency, stigma and misunderstanding, and an inability to create policy changes that covers the population as a whole and their acute and long-term needs.

New Forms Of Dialects Between Intellectual Property And Public Health: Pharmaceutical Patent-Related Investment Disputes, Valentina Vadi

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Fda And The Rise Of The Empowered Patient, Lewis Grossman

Contributions to Books

No abstract provided.