Five years ago today, the first post went up on Bill of Health. Since then, the blog has received over 980,000 unique page views from 220 countries, helping to further the discussion of issues in health law policy, biotechnology, and bioethics and to publicize opportunities in the field. Over 3,100 posts have covered everything from ethical issues with bioengineered interspecies organ transplants to potential medical malpractice concerns with artificial intelligence to fetal personhood and the Constitution to analysis of surrogacy arrangements gone awry to food safety issues in China.
As the field has changed over the past five years, so too has the blog. We’ve developed collaborations with other organizations and blogs, hosted a series of blog symposia, blogged “live” from conferences, and expanded the participation of our center’s diverse Fellows. In celebration of our anniversary, this month we will feature posts that highlight these past contributions and new posts that explore the development of issues in health law policy, biotechnology, and bioethics over the past five years.
Our most popular posts, based on total unique page views, reflect the diversity of topics Bill of Health covers:
Year One (September 5, 2012 – August 31, 2013)
- The High Cost of Health Care: Why Some Pay $240 for a $9 Bottle of Pills, by Jonathan J. Darrow (Student Fellow)
- Discrimination in the Doctor-Patient Relationship, by Holly Fernandez Lynch (Bill of Health Co-Founder and former Petrie-Flom Center Executive Director)
- Liability for Failure to Vaccinate, by Arthur Caplan
- At $28,000 a Dose, How Effective Is Acthar? by Jonathan J. Darrow (Student Fellow)
- This American Life and Stigma, by Michelle Meyer (Academic Fellow)
Year Two (September 1, 2013 – August 31, 2014)
- Capsule Endoscopy Instead of Colonoscopy? The FDA Approves the PillCam COLON, by Jonathan J. Darrow (Student Fellow)
- Is Fracking Good or Bad? by Joanna Sax
- Health Insurance & Patient Responsibility, Part I, by Deborah Cho (Student Fellow)
- Doctors who DREAM: Clearing up Confusion on Citizenship Requirements, by Nadia N. Sawicki
- Ethical Concerns, Conduct and Public Policy for Re-Identification and De-identification Practice: Part 3 (Re-Identification Symposium), by Daniel Barth-Jones
Year Three (September 1, 2014 – August 31, 2015)
- Medical Marijuana Delivery May Not Be As “Eazy” As It Seems, by Arielle Lusardi, PHLR
- Savior Siblings in the United States, by Zachary Shapiro (Student Fellow)
- The Great Vaccination Debate Rages On: Is There Any Solution? by Allison M. Whelan
- My Plan to Avoid the Ravages of Extreme Dementia, by Norman L. Cantor
- Federal Newborn Screening Law Emphasizes Informed Consent, by Allison M. Whelan
Year Four (September 1, 2015 – August 31, 2016)
- Medicaid Is Not a Welfare Program, by Michael Anne Kyle (Student Fellow)
- Mylan Announces Generic EpiPen; Baffles Health Policy Wonks Everywhere, by Rachel E. Sachs (Academic Fellow)
- Assisted Suicide and Lethal Injection: FDA’s Regulatory Dilemma? by Elizabeth Guo (Student Fellow)
- How does the Bipartisan Budget Bill change Social Security Disability Benefits? by Emma Sandoe (Student Fellow)
- FDA Announces Draft Guidance That Would Limit Enforcement Discretion for FMT, by Rachel E. Sachs (Academic Fellow)
Year Five (September 1, 2016 – August 11, 2017)
- Westworld and Bioethics, by I. Glenn Cohen (Bill of Health Co-Founder and Petrie-Flom Center Faculty Director)
- Final Common Rule Revisions Just Published, by Holly Fernandez Lynch (Bill of Health Co-Founder and former Petrie-Flom Center Executive Director)
- PhRMA, Marathon Is Why You Can’t Have Nice Things, by Rachel E. Sachs (Academic Fellow)
- Let’s All Worry About The Effects of Patent Injunctions Against Drug Manufacturers, by Rachel E. Sachs (Academic Fellow)
- Artificial Intelligence, Medical Malpractice, and the End of Defensive Medicine, by Shailin Thomas (Student Fellow)
Thank you to our many contributors – and to our readers! We look forward to many more years of growth. In the meantime, happy reading!