Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Dna Storage Banks: The Importance Of Preserving Dna Evidence To Allow For Transparency And The Preservation Of Justice, Cristina Martin

Chicago-Kent Law Review

What is the duty to preserve information in today’s society? In order for humanity to evolve, change and flourish in the future, society needs to preserve its information from the past. In the criminal justice field, preservation of evidence has special significance. DNA evidence in particular has become a helpful aid for innocent defendants who have been improperly imprisoned. Over the past twenty years, the number of exonerations of imprisoned criminal defendants has increased dramatically. With the advancement of technology, old, previously untestable or improperly tested DNA evidence will need to be retested. However, most states do not have proper …

The Picture Begins To Assert Itself: Rules Of Construction For Essential Health Benefits In Health Insurance Plans Subject To The Affordable Care Act, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

As the ACA shifts the function of health insurance from voluntary contract to a means of financing health care, it poses some challenges to traditional doctrines for interpreting health plan provisions. This article explores whether and how the doctrine of reasonable expectations and rules of statutory interpretation might apply to Essential Health Benefits coverage. A functional approach linking the two into a doctrine of reasonable statutory expectations could move us toward developing more consistent rules of interpretation within a more realistic conception of contemporary health insurance.

Scaling Cost-Sharing To Wages: How Employers Can Reduce Health Spending And Provide Greater Economic Security, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

In the employer-sponsored insurance market that covers most Americans many workers are “underinsured.” The evidence shows onerous out-of-pocket payments causing them to forgo needed care, miss work, and fall into bankruptcies and foreclosures. Nonetheless, many higher-paid workers are “overinsured”: the evidence shows that in this domain, surplus insurance stimulates spending and price inflation without improving health. Employers can solve these problems together by scaling cost-sharing to wages. This reform would make insurance better protect against risk and guarantee access to care, while maintaining or even reducing insurance premiums.

Yet, there are legal obstacles to scaled cost-sharing. The group-based nature of …

Ebola, Quarantine, And Flawed Cdc Policy, Robert Gatter

University of Miami Business Law Review

The CDC’s Interim Guidance for Monitoring and Movements of Persons with Potential Ebola Virus Exposure is deeply flawed because it disregards the science of Ebola transmission. It recommends that officials quarantine individuals exposed to the virus but who do not have any symptoms of illness, ignoring the fact that only those with Ebola symptoms can communicate the virus to others. Consequently, any quarantine order based on the Guidelines is surely unconstitutional and illegal under most states’ public health statutes—as exemplified by the State of Maine’s failed petition to quarantine Nurse Kaci Hickox in October 2014. This article examines the Guidance …

Pharmaceuticals And Biopiracy: How The Aia May Inadvertently Reduce The Misappropriation Of Traditional Medicine, Ryan D. Levy, Spencer Green

University of Miami Business Law Review

For decades, Eastern traditional medicine has been misappropriated by others who claim it as their own and attempt to obtain patent protection for it. As long this practice has existed, the international community has pushed back against it. Several countries and international bodies have created databases of traditional knowledge, hoping to preclude the issuance of patents on that knowledge. Other countries, like Thailand, have extended intellectual property protection to the traditional knowledge stakeholders themselves. However, a recent change to US patent law may have the unintended consequence of helping resolve the issue of biopiracy

The Dangerous Right To Food Choice, Samuel R. Wiseman

Scholarly Publications

Scholars, advocates, and interest groups have grown increasingly concerned with the ways in which government regulations—from agricultural subsidies to food safety regulations to licensing restrictions on food trucks—affect access to local food. One argument emerging from the interest in recent years is that choosing what foods to eat, what I have previously called “liberty of palate,” is a fundamental right.1 The attraction is obvious: infringements of fundamental rights trigger strict scrutiny, which few statutes survive. As argued elsewhere, the doctrinal case for the existence of such a right is very weak. This Essay does not revisit those arguments, but instead …

Legal, Operational, And Practical Considerations For Hospitals And Health Care Providers In Responding To Communicable Diseases Following The 2014 Ebola Outbreak, Jane Jordan, Greg Measer, Asha Agrawal, James G. Hodge Jr.

University of Miami Business Law Review

This article analyzes some of the potential issues that may arise during epidemics or other public health emergencies. It specifically focuses on legal and operational preparedness experiences at Emory University during the 2014 Ebola crisis. Emory University Hospital was the first health care facility in the U.S. to treat patients diagnosed with Ebola Viral Disease (EVD). Although EVD has particularly frightening symptoms and a high mortality rate, its containment and treatment implicate similar legal, practical, and operational issues as other highly infectious and communicable diseases. These issues include laws related to: isolation and quarantine; travel restrictions; duties to treat highly …

Wollschlaeger, A Patient’S Right To Privacy, And A Renewed Focus On Mental Health Treatment, Chad A. Pasternack

University of Miami Business Law Review

In response to doctors pushing gun control agendas on patients, Florida enacted the Firearm Owners Privacy Act. The law, upheld by the Eleventh Circuit in Wollschlaeger v. Governor of Florida, protects patients from intrusive lines of inquiry unrelated to their treatment and from discrimination due to firearm ownership. While patients in Florida benefit greatly from the Firearm Owners Privacy Act, this note argues for more specific language in the law, which would parallel language in the Florida Mental Health Act (“Baker Act”). The proposed changes would limit inquiries into firearm ownership to instances where there is a substantial likelihood …

Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, And The Failed Experiment Of "Sexually Violent Predator" Commitment, Deirdre M. Smith

Faculty Publications

In its 1997 opinion, Kansas v. Hendricks, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that reflected a new model of civil commitment. The targets of this new commitment law were dubbed “Sexually Violent Predators” (SVPs), and the Court upheld indefinite detention of these individuals on the assumption that there is a psychiatrically distinct class of individuals who, unlike typical recidivists, have a mental condition that impairs their ability to refrain from violent sexual behavior. And, more specifically, the Court assumed that the justice system could reliably identify the true “predators,” those for whom this unusual and extraordinary deprivation of liberty …

Terminating The Hospital-Physician Employment Relationship: Navigating Conflicts Arising From The Physician’S Dual Roles As Employee And Medical Staff Member, Gayland Hethcoat

University of Miami Business Law Review

In an effort to meet the challenges of the post-health reform marketplace, hospitals have accelerated the practice of employing physicians. Despite this trend, many hospitals require their employed physicians to also maintain membership and privileges on the medical staff—the self-governing entity comprised of fellow physicians that oversees the practice of medicine within the hospital setting. Recent case law identifies at least two salient issues that will likely arise from physicians’ dual roles as hospital employee and medical staff member and be a point of negotiation and litigation: (1) the applicability of “due process” rights, which are typically afforded in medical …

Estelle V. Gamble In A Post-Affordable Care Act World, Hallie E. Mitnick

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

No abstract provided.

What Will It Take To Address The Global Threat Of Antibiotic Resistance?, Kevin Outterson, Steven J. Hoffman

Faculty Scholarship

Antibiotic resistance is a global threat that may be beyond the capacity of any one country to address. We assess the three primary issues (access, conservation and innovation) and discuss which require higher levels of global coordination.

Public Health, Universal Health Coverage, And Sustainable Development Goals: Can They Coexist?, Harald Schmidt, Lawrence O. Gostin, Ezekiel Emanuel

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In her 2012 reconfirmation speech as WHO Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan asserted: "universal coverage is the single most powerful concept that public health has to offer. It is our ticket to greater efficiency and better quality. It is our savior from the crushing weight of chronic noncommunicable diseases that now engulf the globe ". The UN General Assembly is currently considering proposals for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), succeeding the Millennium Development Goals. SDGs, focusing on health, specifically includes universal health coverage (UHC) among its targets. Unquestionably, UHC is timely and fundamentally important. However, its promotion also entails substantial risks. A …

Neuroscience And Health Law: An Integrative Approach, Stacey A. Tovino J.D., Ph.D.

Akron Law Review

Neuroscience is one of the fastest growing scientific fields in terms of the numbers of scientists and the knowledge being gained. In recent years, both the scope of neuroscience and the methodologies employed by neuroscientists have broadly expanded, from biochemical and genetic analysis of individual nerve cells and their molecular constituents, to the imaging of brain structure and function. Perhaps the most significant recent neuroscientific achievement is the ability of neuroimaging technologies, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to image brain function. Clinicians and scientists use fMRI not only to map sensory, motor, and cognitive function, but also to study …

Remarks: Neuroscience, Gender, And The Law, Stacey A. Tovino Jd, Phd

Akron Law Review

n my recent research, I have been exploring the legal impact of advances in the neuroscience of gender, such as whether and how stakeholders are using recent studies finding structural and functional differences between male and female brains in an attempt to influence the law. I also have been examining whether and how stakeholders are using the neuroscience of both gender-specific and gender-prevalent health conditions to influence the interpretation of civil and regulatory health law. Today, I am going to explore how stakeholders are using advances in the neuroscience of three gender-specific and genderprevalent conditions (the postpartum mood disorders, premenstrual …

The 2014 Farm Bill: Farm Subsidies And Food Oppression, Andrea Freeman

Seattle University Law Review

The 2014 Farm Bill ushered in some significant and surprising changes. One of these was that it rendered the identity of all the recipients of farm subsidies secret. Representative Larry Combest, who is now a lobbyist for agribusiness, first introduced a secrecy provision into the bill in 2000. The provision, however, only applied to subsidies made in the form of crop insurance. Until 2014, the majority of subsidies were direct payments and the identity of the people who received them was public information. In fact, the Environmental Working Group’s release of the list of recipients led to a series of …

The Challenge And Dilemma Of Charting A Course To Constitutionally Protect The Severely Mentally Ill Capital Defendant From The Death Penalty, Lyn Entzeroth

Akron Law Review

This article examines these issues in the context of an important and emerging constitutional challenge to the death penalty: whether the death penalty can be imposed on capital defendants who suffer from severe mental illness at the time of the commission of their crimes. The American Bar Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill all endorse a death penalty exemption for the severely mentally ill. Recent law review articles suggest that such an exemption may even be compelled by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roper v. Simmons and Atkins v. …

Is Meaningful Peer Review Headed Back To Florida?, Brendan A. Sorg

Akron Law Review

This comment lays the foundation to evaluate the sustainability of Amendment 7 post-PSQIA in Part II by first examining medical peer review, its origin, its evolution and why peer review remains important to patient safety. Although many physicians dislike peer review, Congress has acknowledged its importance by making peer review mandatory and by providing the statutory protections to ensure peer review remains meaningful.7 States have followed suit, passing their own laws that provide for the protection of peer review materials. Part II also addresses how Amendment 7 reversed Florida’s historical approach providing broad peer review protection and how this erosion …

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome: A Global Health Challenge, Lawrence O. Gostin, Daniel Lucey

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Beginning in May 2015, Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS) experienced its first publicly reported “super-spreading” event in South Korea. By mid-June, more than 120 cases and 11 deaths in South Korea had been linked to a businessman returning from travel to Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Globally more than 1200 had been infected of whom more than 450 died—a high fatality rate of 37%.

What are the most effective legal, social, and public health responses to MERS and other emerging diseases? First, the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations (IHR) did not effectively guide the …

Newsroom: Savage On Mentally Ill Convicts, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.