Medical Jurisprudence Commons^™

Everyone Bleeds Guilty: Blood Draws For Law Enforcement Purposes In Light Of The Hipaa Privacy Rule And Recent Supreme Court Decisions, 52 Uic J. Marshall L. Rev. 489 (2019), Bianca Valdez

UIC Law Review

Intoxicated driving claims more than 10,000 lives per year. In efforts to combat this devastating statistic, states have enacted laws that permit law enforcement officers to order warrantless blood draws from suspects of driving under the influence. In doing so, law enforcement officers seek the assistance of medical personnel to carry out the phlebotomy process. While medical personnel are obliged to assist law enforcement with their investigations, they also have an ethical duty to their patient and a legal duty to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. What are the legal implications when the suspect …

Billion Dollar Orphans: Tension Between The Legal Intent And Social Purpose Of The Orphan Drug Act, John Sheridan

Texas A&M Law Review

This Comment examines the extent to which Congress empowered the FDA to address the increase in petitions and the general accessibility of orphan drug remedies. Specifically, this Comment seeks to understand why the FDA’s interpretation of the purpose of the ODA seems to conflict with the statutory intent as interpreted by federal courts. This Comment considers a statute’s ultimate goal or social purpose to be the purpose of the statute, whereas the express mechanisms by which Congress seeks to bring about these goals is best understood as the statute’s intent. To understand the FDA and judiciary’s differing interpretations of the …

Developing Product Label Information To Support Evidence-Informed Use Of Vaccines In Pregnancy, Terra A. Manca, Janice E. Graham, Ève Dubé, Melissa Kervin, Eliana Castillo, Natasha S. Crowcroft, Deshayne B. Fell, Michael Hadskis, Jaelene M. Mannerfeldt, Devon Greyson, Noni E. Macdonald, Karina A. Top, On Behalf Of The Canadian Vaccine Product Monograph Working Group

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Background: Product labelling information describing the use of vaccines in pregnancy continues to contain cautionary language even after clinical and epidemiological evidence of safety becomes available. This language raises safety concerns among healthcare providers who may hesitate to recommend vaccines during pregnancy.

Purpose: To develop clear evidence-based language about vaccine safety and effectiveness in pregnancy for inclusion in vaccine product labels.

Methods: We conducted a three-stage consensus-methods project with stakeholders, including: healthcare providers, vaccine regulators, industry representatives, and experts in public health, communication, law, ethics, and social sciences. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, we held a nominal group technique (NGT) …

The Gender Injustice Of Abortion Laws, Joanna Erdman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This commentary is a response to Katarzyna Sękowska-Kozłowska’s article on the treatment of criminal abortion laws as a form of sex discrimination under international human rights law through a study of the communications, Mellet v. Ireland and Whelan v. Ireland. The commentary offers a reading of these communications, and specifically the sex discrimination analysis premised on inequalities of treatment among women, as an engagement with the structural discrimination that characterises abortion laws, and asa radical vision for gender justice under international human rights law.

No More Chances For Lost Chances: A Weinribian Response To Weinrib, Nayha Acharya

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Sometimes, patients who were negligently misdiagnosed by their doctors are unable to receive any compensation through tort litigation. This has led to a perception of unfairness, igniting arguments in favour of what is known as the “loss of chance” doctrine. Under this doctrine, patients would be able to claim damages for the lost chances of recovery that they suffered due to negligent misdiagnoses. British and Canadian courts have rejected this doctrine in the medical negligence context on the basis that it does not cohere with tort law principles of injury compensation. Professor Ernest Weinrib, in “Causal Uncertainty” (2016) 36:1 Oxford …

Assessment Of Medicaid Beneficiaries Included In Community Engagement Requirements In Kentucky, Atheendar Venkataramani, Elizabeth F. Bair, Erica Dixon, Kristin A. Linn, Will Ferrell, Margrethe Montgomery, Michelle K. Strollo, Kevin G. Volpp, Kristen Underhill

Faculty Scholarship

States are pursuing Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration waiver authority to apply community engagement (CE) requirements (eg, participation in work, volunteer activities, or training) to beneficiaries deemed able-bodied as a condition of coverage. Understanding the size and characteristics of the populations included in these requirements can help inform policy initiatives and anticipate effects.

The Opioid Crisis: The States' And Local Governments' Response To Bigpharma's Deception And Why The Supremacy Clause May Provide A Cloak For Opioid Manufacturers To Hide Behind, Tracie Childers

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dr. Tele-Corporation: Bridging The Access-To-Care Gap, Nader Amer

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The United States is currently confronting an access-to-healthcare crisis, which rural regions are experiencing at a disproportionate rate. Many commentators have touted telemedicine as a solution for the access-to-care issue. Telemedicine uses video and telecommunication technology to allow physicians to treat patients from distant locations and thus facilitates a more equal distribution of physicians throughout the United States.

Although the telemedicine industry is quickly growing, the corporate practice of medicine doctrine impedes the industry’s expansion and consequently obstructs a viable solution to the access-to-care crisis. Generally, the corporate practice of medicine doctrine prohibits corporations and limited liability companies from employing …

On The Judicialization Of Health, Ana Santos Rutschman

All Faculty Scholarship

The provision of health care has long been at the forefront of domestic and international debates, philosophical inquiries, and political agendas. A growing body of legal scholarship has added to the debate by examining the role of judicial review in the context of health-related litigation. What role, if any, should courts play in compelling the provision of health care or in furthering access to potentially life-saving medicines?

This question intersects with multiple strands of the law. For instance, it has an institutional component that interrogates the function(s) of courts within systems of checks and balances. It ties into constitutional design …

Mentally Ill, Or Mentally Ill And Dangerous?: Rethinking Civil Commitments In Minnesota, Eliot T. Tracz

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Robots Are Coming: A Discussion Of Choice-Of-Law Issues And Outcomes In Telesurgical Malpractice, Megan Cloud

Texas A&M Law Review

New technology frequently emerges that challenges the legal status quo. Early adopters must then grapple with uncertainty over how the law will apply to novel legal quandaries. There is no better example of this than in medicine; however, the health care field is notoriously risk averse. Despite this, the practice of medicine stands to gain tremendously from these technological advancements. One such advancement is the relatively new ability to perform robotic surgery in which the surgeon is remote from the patient. Widespread use of this technology would improve rural access to surgical care, as well as improve access to more …

Feigned Consensus: Usurping The Law In Shaken Baby Syndrome/Abusive Head Trauma Prosecutions, Keith A. Findlay, D. Michael Risinger, Patrick D. Barnes, Julie A. Mack, David A. Moran, Barry Scheck, Thomas L. Bohan

Articles

Few medico-legal matters have generated as much controversy-both in the medical literature and in the courtroom-as Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), now known more broadly as Abusive Head Trauma (AHT). The controversies are of enormous significance in the law because child abuse pediatricians claim, on the basis of a few non-specific medical findings supported by a weak and methodologically flawed research base, to be able to "diagnose" child abuse, and thereby to provide all of the evidence necessary to satisfy all of the legal elements for criminal prosecution (or removal of children from their parents). It is a matter, therefore, in …

Court Personnel Attitudes Towards Medication-Assisted Treatment: A Statewide Survey, Barbara Andraka-Christou, Meghan Gabriel, Jody L. Madeira, Rod D. Silverman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Background: Despite its efficacy, medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is rarely available in the criminal justice system in the United States, including in problem-solving courts or diversionary settings. Previous studies have demonstrated criminal justice administrators' hostility towards MAT, especially in prisons and jails. Yet, few studies have examined attitudes among court personnel or compared beliefs among different types of personnel. Also, few studies have explored the relationship between MAT education/training and attitudes. Finally, few studies have directly compared attitudes towards methadone, oral buprenorphine, and extended-release naltrexone in the criminal justice system.

Methods: We modified a survey by Matusow et al. (2013) to …

When Ais Outperform Doctors: Confronting The Challenges Of A Tort-Induced Over-Reliance On Machine Learning, A. Michael Froomkin, Ian Kerr, Joelle Pineau

Articles

Someday, perhaps soon, diagnostics generated by machine learning (ML) will have demonstrably better success rates than those generated by human doctors. What will the dominance of ML diagnostics mean for medical malpractice law, for the future of medical service provision, for the demand for certain kinds of doctors, and in the long run for the quality of medical diagnostics itself?

This Article argues that once ML diagnosticians, such as those based on neural networks, are shown to be superior, existing medical malpractice law will require superior ML-generated medical diagnostics as the standard of care in clinical settings. Further, unless implemented …

How Neuroscience Technology Is Changing Our Understanding Of Brain Injury, Vegetative States And The Law, Glenn R. Butterton

Articles

The author examines clinical studies that use neuroscience technology to study patients in Vegetative States. The studies indicate that some of the patients are, in fact, conscious. The author suggests that this finding is a matter of considerable practical importance for the drafting and execution of end-of-life protocols such as Advance Directives and Living Wills. He recommends that statutes, and other guidance used by patients, caregivers, medical institutions, family members and others to draft and interpret such Directives and Wills, be revised or amended to take account of these results.

The Immediacy Of Genome Editing And Mitochondrial Replacement, Raymond C. O'Brien

Scholarly Articles

After human DNA was first defined in 1953, the parallel science of assisted reproductive technology achieved a successful human birth through in vitro fertilization in 1978. Science then went on to facilitate gestational surrogacy, banking human reproductive materials, such as embryos, and greater opportunities for couples and individuals to become parents. Fertility clinics were established throughout the world to help persons and couples achieve parenthood, contributing to a steady increase in babies born through assisted reproductive means. Gradually, both federal and state laws in the United States were enacted to collect data from the fertility clinics, mandate insurance coverage of …

Situational Irony? How Implementing A Medicaid Block Grant Will Exacerbate Everything It Purports To Fix, Brent Miller

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Multiple Sclerosis Drugs Have Been Getting A Lot More Expensive, Ben Jay

Capstones

Multiple Sclerosis is a very expensive disease. According to a 2016 study in the American Journal of Managed Care, treating it can cost patients anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 per year, which can meet or even exceed the average US household median income, depending on how severe your case is. For a disease that has no known cure, and requires frequent medical attention to manage symptoms that can completely debilitate a person if left untreated, that can mean spending $4.1 million over the course of a lifetime, according to the same study. However, in the last 20 years, that …

Halted Innovation: The Expansion Of Federal Jurisdiction Over Medicine And The Human Body, Myrisha S. Lewis

Faculty Publications

Modern medical innovations are blurring the line between medical practice and medical devices and drugs. Historically, many techniques have been developed in medicine, without any interference from the federal government, as medical practice is (and has historically been) an area of state jurisdiction. Over the past two decades, however, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been exerting jurisdiction over the human body and the practice of medicine by targeting new medical techniques for oversight and subjecting the continued use of those treatments to onerous and legally questionable regulatory requirements that hinder the use of those treatments in practice. …

Halted Innovation: The Expansion Of Federal Jurisdiction Over Medicine And The Human Body, Myrisha S. Lewis

Utah Law Review

Modern medical innovations are blurring the line between medical practice and medical devices and drugs. Historically, many techniques have been developed in medicine, without any interference from the federal government, as medical practice is (and has historically been) an area of state jurisdiction. Over the past two decades, however, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been exerting jurisdiction over the human body and the practice of medicine by targeting new medical techniques for oversight and subjecting the continued use of those treatments to onerous and legally questionable regulatory requirements that hinder the use of those treatments in practice. …