Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Locked Up And Locked Down In The Land Of Free: A Look At The United States' Prisons And Covid-19'S Disproportionate Effect On Black Americans' Right To Health, Zachary Parrish

American University International Law Review

The United States is infamous for having a large percentage of its population in prison. Each year since 2002, the United States has reported a higher incarceration rate than any other country in the world. Another unfortunate but widely prevalent issue that the United States has is systemic racism. The combination of the United States’ struggles with systemic racism and mass incarceration makes for a disproportionately devastating impact on Black Americans. As a result, Black Americans make up a disproportionate amount of the prisoners that fill American prisons.

El Control Estatal De La (Des)Informacion En Internet En El Contexto De La Pandemia: Un Analisis De Las Tendencias Regionales Bajo Una Perspectiva De Libertad De Expresion, Paula Roko

American University International Law Review

El 3 de mayo de 2020, en el marco del Día Mundial de la Libertad de Prensa, el secretario general de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) afirmó que la desinformación se ha convertido en la “segunda pandemia”. Unos meses antes, el Director General de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) ya había señalado que “las noticias falsas se difunden más rápido y con más facilidad que el virus, y que son igual de peligrosas”. Estos fueron comentarios recurrentes durante el 2020, un año que será recordado por el estallido de una pandemia mundial sin precedentes. Teorías conspirativas …

Reparations For Racial Wealth Disparities As Remedy For Social Contract Breach, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

Acute crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2008 financial meltdown exposed and exacerbated chronic racial wealth disparities. Those disparities accumulated over time as government and private actions—often involving contracts—systemically benefitted White Americans and institutions at the expense of African-Americans. This essay focuses on a private law mechanism—loan contracts—as one important contributor to systemic racial wealth disparities, labels particular lending contracts and related government action as breaches of the social contract, and proposes a restitution-based form of reparations as a remedy for that breach.

When Not To Ask: A Defense Of Choice-Masking Nudges In Medical Research, Susanna Mcgrew, Sarah Raskoff, Benjamin E. Berkman

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Patient Protection And Registered Nurse Retention: Model Legislation Addressing Inadequate Registered Nurse Staffing In Hospitals, Abbey Pirie Anderson

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Navigating Legalities In Crisis Standards Of Care, James G. Hodge Jr., Jennifer L. Piatt, Rebecca Freed

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Mental Health Care And Intimate Partner Violence: Unasked Questions, Delaney E. Anderson, Richard C. Boldt

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

The Regulation Of Lab-Grown Meat Under Existing Jurisdictional Authority, Kate Sollee

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Atkins V. Parker: Maximizing Treatments In A "Cruel World" Of Limited Resources Or Minimizing Constitutional Rights, Emily Mcgowan

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

The Criminal Legal System Doesn’T Care About Your Mental Illness, Fredrick E. Vars

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Why would a beloved small-town doctor with no history of violence suddenly strangle his father to death? The Other Dr. Gilmer is a gripping account of the search for an answer to this question. It turns out the doctor has a rare neurological disorder that likely caused the killing. If only the diagnosis had come before trial, the author believes, the doctor would not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. That belief is appealing, but naïve. Jails and prisons are full of people with mental illness. Misdiagnosis is not the reason. A close examination …

Recommendations On Mature Minors, Constance Macintosh

Reports & Public Policy Documents

Recommendation: The Committee should remove the requirement from the Criminal Code that candidates for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) be at least 18 years old. This is for the following reasons, elaborated upon below.

1.The MAID regime should always turn on the actual capacity of any person requesting MAID

2.The MAID regime’s approach to consent and capacity should be consistent with Canadian law on health care decision-making by minors

3.The MAID regime will likely be found unconstitutional if it maintains an age-based bar

4.The vulnerability of youth may require a different approach but does not justify an age-based bar

5.Removing …

Evaluation Of Risk Perception Of Smoking After The Implementation Of California’S Tobacco 21 Law, Joanna K. Sax, Neal Doran

Faculty Scholarship

Decreasing smoking initiation remains a public health priority. In 2016, California, in the United States, enacted the Tobacco 21 law, which raised the minimum age for the purchase of tobacco products from age 18 to age 21. This paper evaluates whether the enactment and implementation of the Tobacco 21 law changed how young adults perceive the risk(s) of smoking. Data were drawn from a cohort of emerging adults (n = 575) in California who were non-daily smokers at enrollment and followed quarterly for 3 years. Data were collected during 2015–2019. Piecewise multilevel regression models were used to test for changes …

Derogations To Human Rights During A Global Pandemic: Unpacking Normative And Practical Challenges, Roman Girma Teshome

American University International Law Review

After the World Health Organization (WHO) characterized the COVID-19 outbreak as a “global pandemic,” States responded by taking more restrictive and urgent measures. These measures ranged from restrictions on public events to partial or total lockdowns, which restrict a plethora of human rights. Additionally, an unprecedented number of States declared a state of emergency to justify these measures; as of this writing, roughly two-thirds of States declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19 under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”).

Immigration Reforms As Health Policy, Medha D. Makhlouf, Patrick J. Glen

Faculty Scholarly Works

The 2020 election, uniting control of the political branches in the Democratic party, opened up a realistic possibility of immigration reform. Reform of the immigration system is long overdue, but in pursuing such reform, Congress should cast a broad net and recognize the health policies embedded in immigration laws. Some immigration laws undermine health policies designed to improve individual and population health. For example, immigration inadmissibility and deportability laws that chill noncitizens from enrolling in health-promoting public benefits contribute to health inequities in immigrant communities that spill over into the broader population—a fact highlighted by the still-raging COVID-19 pandemic. Restrictions …

Medicine, Structural Racism, And Systems, Daniel G. Aaron, Fatima Cody Stanford

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Medicine is having a reckoning with systemic racism. While some continue to believe medicine is apolitical and grounded purely in science, history and research reveal that medicine is inseparable from underlying systems, laws, and policies. Obesity is a useful case study. Weight loss trials have shown the immense difficulty in achieving and sustaining weight loss without addressing overlying systems. Barriers are double for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) with obesity, who must contend with multiple layers of oppressive systems. Increasingly, illness is not a matter of bad luck, but is a function of oppressive structures. COVID-19 likely originates …

Opioid Accountability, Daniel G. Aaron

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The opioid crisis has steadily killed Americans for twenty years. In total, we have lost 450,000 American lives since the 1990s, and countless more suffer from chronic addiction.

After years of piecemeal efforts to address this massive loss of life and health, the opioid litigation, largely centralized in Ohio federal district court, has brought significant hope for change. But there is a notable divide between the popular sense of the litigation and its reality. A full 57% of Americans believe that opioid companies should be held accountable for precipitating a public health crisis. However, the litigation has been dedicated to …

Loneliness In Covid-19, Life, And Law, Olivia Ash, Peter H. Huang

Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine

No abstract provided.

The Electoral Determinants Of Health: State Voting Laws And Their Effects On Health Outcomes, Megan Schachter

Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine

No abstract provided.

Addressing Choice Of Law Challenges In Multi-State Precision Medicine Research: Experts' Assessment Key Factors, Leslie E. Wolf, Erin Fuse Brown, Roxanne Greeson, Catherine Hammack-Aviran, James W. Hazel, William Rencher, Laura M. Beskow

Law Faculty Scholarship

This article explores potential frameworks for resolving choice-of-law challenges in multi-state precision medicine research. Through expert workshops involving legal scholars and research ethics specialists, the study identifies key factors relevant to determining which state laws should apply when research spans multiple jurisdictions. Participants emphasized the importance of considering the location of research institutions, participant residence, and the site of potential harm. The discussion also examined potential solutions including federal legislation, model state laws, and centralized databases of relevant statutes. The findings highlight the complexity of legal governance in large-scale biomedical research and propose strategies to improve clarity and consistency in …

Constitutional Issues In Family Law: An Annotated Bibliography (Part 1 Of 2), Allen K. Rostron

Faculty Works

This bibliography covers some of the significant constitutional issues arising in the realm of family law today, as well as other legal and policy issues spinning off of the constitutional controversies. It focuses on issues discussed in the articles in this issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.