Resources: Affiliate News
Past sperm and egg donors split on losing anonymity
[...] The ethical considerations of egg and sperm donor anonymity are complicated, researchers said. "Those in favor of non-anonymity or mandatory identification rules tend to argue from the perspective of the rights of the child that's born and talk about the right to know your genetic…
These Two Americans Want Babies Through Indian Surrogates.: It's Not Been Easy.
[...] An estimated 2,000 foreign babies are born to Indian surrogates each year, according to research in the forthcoming book Patients With Passports: Medical Tourism, Ethics, and Law, by Harvard law professor I.…
Harvard Law School to Host Conference on Food Safety Law
The Petrie-Flom Center's upcoming conference "New Directions for Food Safety: The Food Safety Modernization Act and Beyond," which will be held at Harvard Law School on Friday, February 21, 2014, was…
Do Fixed Patent Terms Distort Innovation?: Evidence from Cancer Clinical Trials
Abstract: Patents award innovators a fixed period of market exclusivity, e.g., 20 years in the United States. Yet, since in many industries firms file patents at the time of discovery ("invention") rather than first sale ("commercialization"), effective patent terms vary: inventions…
Petrie-Flom Center to collaborate with Harvard Catalyst: on second Clinical and Translational Science Award
Official Press Release: Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics will launch a novel Ethics and Law initiative as part of the Regulatory Foundations, Ethics, and Law Program of Harvard…
The Jurisdiction of the D.C. Circuit
Abstract: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is unique among federal courts. It is well known for its unusual caseload, which is disproportionally weighted toward administrative law. What explains the unusual caseload? This Article explores the inputs into the D.C.…
Now Available: Bioethical Prescriptions: To Create, End, Choose, and Improve Lives
Bioethical Prescriptions collects Frances M. Kamm's articles on bioethics, which…
Announcing the New Journal of Law and the Biosciences
The Petrie-Flom Center and Harvard Law School are delighted to announce our partnership with Duke University, Stanford University, and Oxford University Press to launch a new peer-reviewed, open access, online journal in 2014: Journal…
Supreme Court to decide Obamacare birth control mandate
[...] Ms. Lynch said the outcome is a particularly hard one to predict. But she thinks the court will dispense with the constitutional claims and focus more heavily on religious-freedom protection in RFRA. …
VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE: Stem Cell Therapies:: Opportunities for Assuring the Quality and Safety of Unregulated Clinical Offerings
Stem cells hold tremendous potential to advance health and medicine. Through replacement of damaged cells and organs or supporting intrinsic repair, stem cell offer promising treatments for debilitating diseases and conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, and spinal cord injury. Currently,…
Have Injury, Will Travel:: With medical costs exploding, young adventurers are opting to go under the knife overseas. Is the risk worth it?
[...] Most people who travel abroad for medical care are uninsured or underinsured, with high-copay or high-deductible insurance, says Glenn Cohen, a professor atHarvard Law School who studies medical tourism. [...]
Genes without Patents: ACLU attorney joins discussion of Supreme Court case
As Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan questioned Myriad Genetics’ attorney about patenting genes, Chris Hansen rejoiced. The attorney said that yes, genes should be patentable. But it was only under the pressure of further questions that he said that chromosomes, too, should be patentable,…
Chris Hansen on “Dis-Owning Nature: The BRCA Gene Patents and the Supreme Court”
ABOUT THE SPEAKER Chris Hansen joined the ACLU in 1973. He spent 10 years at the NYCLU specializing in complex litigation seeking reform of the mental retardation and mental health systems. He then spent 10 years as the Associate Director of the Children’s Rights Project of the ACLU specializing…
Peter Singer Advocates for Animal Rights
[...] Friday’s talk was part of a series sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at the Law School. Singer also spoke later in the day in the Science Center about effective altruism—a utilitarian stance on how best to affect change in the…
Class in Session: Health Law Professors Share Career Insight and Experience: featuring Petrie-Flom faculty co-director I. Glenn Cohen
Local professors specializing in health care law will discuss their career paths and offer highlights of their current research endeavors. Current practitioners and law students will learn about different paths into academia and gain a better understanding of the types of research being conducted…
Informed consent for return of incidental findings in genomic research
Purpose: Researchers face the dilemma of how to obtain consent for return of incidental findings from genomic research. We surveyed and interviewed investigators and study participants, with the goal of providing suggestions for how to shape the consent process. Methods: We…
Pharma manufacturing woes dog industry
[...] While many of these problems arise from quality control failures, according to Nicholson Price from Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom centre for health law policy, biotechnology and bioethics, this is not the only problem – regulatory constraints can prevent process improvements…
Plan B: access to emergency contraception in the legal and political cross hairs
The 8-year legal feud over access to emergency contraception between reproductive health advocates and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took multiple unexpected turns before coming to an abrupt end on June 10, 2013.1,2,3 On that day, after mounting legal setbacks and obstacles, the US Attorney…
Can You Buy Sperm Donor Identification?: An Experiment
In the United States, most sperm donations are anonymous. By contrast, many developed nations require sperm donors to be identified, typically requiring new sperm (and egg) donors to put identifying information into a registry that is made available to a donor-conceived child once he or she reaches…
White House won’t rule out delay of Obamacare; buyers wait for website fix
[...] Others said it’s too early to sound the alarm. “For people who must rely on the federal exchange, there are still 160 days before the end of open enrollment, which seems to be more than enough time to work out the kinks in the online system and get people enrolled before they’d…