Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Dentistry And The Law: Is This Patient Abandonment? Two Scenarios, Dan Schulte Jd

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This article discusses two scenarios involving potential patient abandonment. This article is an installment of the MDA Journal’s monthly Dentistry and the Law department.

Emergency Room To The Courtroom: Providing Abortion Care Under Emtala And State Abortion Bans, Natasha Rappazzo

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

After the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, states began to broadly criminalize abortion. Abortion is criminalized and restricted even in situations that constitute an emergency medical condition under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (“EMTALA”). State abortion bans with limited medical exceptions conflict with EMTALA’s protections for emergency screening and stabilization. Legal challenges to the scope of EMTALA show a growing divide and uncertainty on emergency abortion care in the United States. This Comment will discuss why physicians cannot confidently provide quality and competent abortion care without the …

Using The Common Law Of Contracts To Police Abusive Terms In Hospital Admissions Agreements: Balancing Freedom Of Contract With Fairness, George A. Nation Iii

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Standard hospital admissions contracts (“HACs”) often contain provisions that are shockingly unfair, but are easily overlooked or misunderstood by patients. Hospitals rely on the common law of contracts, especially the doctrine of freedom of contract, to claim that these provisions should be enforced. Many courts have accepted the freedom of contract argument and enforced some or all of these provisions.

This Article suggests that courts are in error to enforce these harsh provisions against patients. This Article focuses on four harsh provisions commonly found in HACs. First is the payment provision which is opaque, misleading, and designed to allow hospitals …

Deserving Life: How Judicial Application Of Medical Amnesty Laws Perpetuates Substance Use Stigma, Scott Koven

Washington and Lee Law Review

To combat the continued devastation wrought by the opioid crisis in the United States, forty-eight states have passed medical amnesty (or “Good Samaritan”) laws. These laws provide varying forms of protection from criminal punishment for certain individuals if medical assistance is sought at the scene of an overdose. Thus far, the nascent scholarly conversation on medical amnesty has focused on the types of statutory protections available and the effectiveness of these statutes. To summarize, although medical amnesty laws have helped combat drug overdose, the statutes are replete with arbitrary limitations that cabin their life-saving potential.

This Note extends the dialogue …

Constitutional Confidentiality, Natalie Ram, Jorge L. Contreras, Laura M. Beskow, Leslie E. Wolf

Washington and Lee Law Review

Federal Certificates of Confidentiality (“Certificates”) protect sensitive information about human research subjects from disclosure and use in judicial, administrative, and legislative proceedings at both the state and federal levels. When they were first authorized by Congress in the 1970s, Certificates covered sensitive information collected in research about drug addiction use. Today, however, they extend to virtually all personal information gathered by biomedical research studies. The broad reach of Certificates, coupled with their power to override state subpoenas and warrants issued in the context of law enforcement, abortion regulation, and other police powers typically under state control, beg the question whether …

The Impact Of Government Sponsored Segregation On Health Inequities: Addressing Death Gaps Through Reparations, Mariya Denisenko

Washington and Lee Law Review

Government sponsored segregation of urban neighborhoods has detrimentally impacted the health of Black Americans. Over the last century, federal, state, and local governments have promulgated racist laws and policies that shaped the racial divide of communities in major metropolitan cities. This divide has contributed to poor health outcomes and large discrepancies in life expectancy for Black Americans when compared to their White counterparts. While health is impacted by various factors, segregation has been shown to impose various challenges that make it difficult for Black Americans to attain good health.

Segregated Black communities struggle with economic inequality, environmental racism, and face …

Dobbs V. Jackson Women’S Health: Undermining Public Health, Facilitating Reproductive Coercion, Aziza Ahmed, Dabney P. Evans, Jason Jackson, Benjamin Mason Meier, Cecília Tomori

Faculty Scholarship

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health continues a trajectory of U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence that undermines the normative foundation of public health — the idea that the state is obligated to provide a robust set of supports for healthcare services and the underlying social determinants of health. Dobbs furthers a longstanding ideology of individual responsibility in public health, neglecting collective responsibility for better health outcomes. Such an ideology on individual responsibility not only enables a shrinking of public health infrastructure for reproductive health, it facilitates the rise of reproductive coercion and a criminal legal response to pregnancy and abortion. This commentary …

Mixed-Up Origins: The Case For A Gestational Presumption In Embryo Mix-Ups, Betsy A. Sugar

Vanderbilt Law Review

Embryo mix-ups-instances in which fertility clinics mistakenly implant one couple with another couple's embryo confound courts' determinations of who, between the two couples, are the legal parents. Lax regulation of the fertility industry permitted this relatively new injury to develop, and it has led to morally and legally fraught questions of parenthood and personal autonomy. This Note reviews parentage doctrines, beginning with a discussion of the martial presumption; it also tracks how courts have traditionally responded to parentage questions that fertility medicine has generated, including embryo division in divorce and parentage in surrogacy contracts. It then analyzes potential approaches to …

Mda Advocacy Report: 2023 To Date, And What’S Next, Jason Mashni Dds

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This article is a recap of MDA legislative advocacy accomplishments and what is on the horizon for the remainder of 2023, written by the chair of the MDA Committee on Governmental and Insurance Affairs.

Q&A: Dealing With Dental Benefits Companies, Neema Katibai Jd

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This article answers seven questions about dental benefit plans that are commonly asked by MDA members.

Staff Matters: How Does Michigan’S New Crown Act Impact Dental Practices?, Jodi Schafer Sphr, Shrm-Scp

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This article discusses Michigan’s new CROWN Act prohibiting hair-based discrimination and its impact on dental offices. This article is an installment of the MDA Journal’s monthly Staff Matters® department.

J Mich Dent Assoc October 2023

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

The October 2023 issue of the Journal of the Michigan Dental Association provides: A message from the chair of the Michigan Dental Association political action committee with a listing of donors and a report on MDA advocacy during 2023, which are this month’s cover stories. Also included is a Q&A feature on dealing with dental benefits companies. This month’s clinical article is a discussion of the management of a failing implant using guided bone regeneration and esthetic crown lengthening. Other features include a listing of 2023 MDA life members and a President’s Message on the dental workforce crisis in Michigan. …

Vaccine Development, The China Dilemma, And International Regulatory Challenges, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the role played by China in the development of international regulatory standards at the intersection of intellectual prop- erty, international trade, and public health. It begins by briefly discussing the role China has played in the global health arena during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article then highlights the difficulty in determining how best to engage with the country in the development of new international regula- tory standards. It shows that the preferred method of engagement will likely depend on one’s perspective on China’s potential contributions and hin- drances: a perspective that focuses on global competition—in the economic, …

Continuous Reproductive Surveillance, Michael Ulrich, Leah R. Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

The Dobbs opinion emphasizes that the state’s interest in the fetus extends to “all stages of development.” This essay briefly explores whether state legislators, agencies, and courts could use the “all stages of development” language to expand reproductive surveillance by using novel developments in consumer health technologies to augment those efforts.

Introduction: Securing Reproductive Justice After Dobbs, Aziza Ahmed, Nicole Huberfeld, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

When we conceptualized this symposium, Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land, albeit precariously. We aimed to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary by exploring historical, legal, medical, and related dimensions of access to abortion as well as the challenges ahead to secure reproductive justice. With the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on May 2, 2022, we shifted to mark the dawn of a new era. In the nearly identical official opinion announced on June 24, 2022, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority (6-3), overturned Roe and Planned Parenthood …

Recapturing The Orphan Drug Act: An Analysis Of Proposals, Rajdeep Trilokekar

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

The Price Of Competition: Analyzing Anticompetitive Tactics In Pharmaceutical Markets During The Hatch-Waxman Era, William Ulrich

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

Pharmaceutical manufacturers can delay the generic entry for a blockbuster drug. In order to keep the generic system on track, it is critical to expose the various avenues of generic delay. Part I of this Note briefly describes the generic entry process as prescribed by the Hatch-Waxman Act. Part II details four well-known tactics used by brand-name manufacturers to block or delay the entry of generic competition, highlighting how the tactics are successful. Part III concludes by examining the nature of the various problems and arguing that the first step towards ending the different forms of anticompetitive behavior is through …

A Sleeping Giant: Mhelath Applications, The Gdpr, And The Need For Federal Privacy Regulation In The United States, Kali Peeples

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

An analysis of privacy regulation concerning mHealth apps is a multifaceted process that requires the examination of changes within not only the healthcare space but also the technological world, as well as the legislative history and intent of various nations.The main issue being addressed in this paper is whether the United States should create nationwide legislation that directly relates to mHealth data protection or continue with a self-regulatory method. Part I focuses on the development and rapid creation of mHealth apps within the past decade. Part II seeks to illustrate the distinct privacy concerns of mHealth apps by concentrating on …

The Code Of Life And Death, Braden R. Leach

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

Biotechnology is advancing at an astonishing clip, but our safeguards are decades behind. Given new technologies and economies of scale, it is possible for nefarious actors to assemble deadly viruses from scratch using synthetic DNA ordered off the internet. The Select Agents statute helps to prevent malicious actors from acquiring dangerous pathogens, but the Department of Health and Human Services has interpreted it to not cover synthetic DNA. Recognizing the gap, HHS issued guidance recommending that gene synthesis companies verify their customers to ensure their legitimacy and screen genetic sequences for matches to pathogen sequences. Unsurprisingly, voluntary guidance has not …

The High Cost Of Pharmaceutical Acquisitions: Increasing Social Welfare Or Furthering Inequality?, Timothy J. Haltermann

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

This note will argue that government and regulatory authorities should focus on easing access to downstream innovation by broadening research exemptions to patent infringement. Part I of this note will focus on the current state of patent protection and exclusivity afforded to pharmaceutical companies. Part II will discuss incentives created that lead rational actors to engage in M&A instead of through internal R&D. Part III will address the development of innovation as a standalone theory of harm in merger review, and the fallacies associated with labeling certain transactions as “killer acquisitions.” Finally, Part IV of the note will look at …