By Erin Talati In the intensive care unit, almost every decision can be made into life or death. For some children whose parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses the need for a blood transfusion becomes quite literally a life or death decision. As clinicians, we struggle with maintaining a relationship with the family, while advocating for what…
by Nadia N. Sawicki The D.C. Circuit’s recent decision vacating the FDA’s graphic labeling requirements has prompted a flood of valuable commentary about compelled speech doctrine, including Richard Epstein’s, below. While analysis of the First Amendment issues is important, I view the R.J. Reynolds case instead as an example of how emphasis on formal legal…
[posted on behalf of Art Caplan] Should a physician be held responsible if an elderly patient causes a car accident while driving? A Los Angeles jury recently decided that Dr. Arthur Daigneault was not responsible for the wrongful death of 90-year-old William Powers, whose longtime partner, a dementia patient, drove into the path of an…
By Michele Goodwin For all the attention by legal scholars, doctors, and politicians to the global organ shortage—and particularly the crisis in the United States, relatively little is said about tissue demand and that supply industry. Well known are the horrific stories involving black markets specializing in organs like kidneys and livers. The troubling stories…
By The Petrie-Flom Center Short notice, but… Alan Wertheimer will be presenting his draft paper “Why Is Consent a Requirement for Ethical Research?” tonight at the Health Law Policy and Bioethics Workshop at Harvard Law School. These workshops take place on selected Mondays from 5-7pm, Hauser Hall, Room 105. This year’s schedule can be found…
By Holly Fernandez Lynch The Greenwall Foundation has selected Bill of Health co-editor, Glenn Cohen, to receive a Faculty Scholar Award in Bioethics for 2012-2015. This career development award is intended to enable outstanding junior faculty members to carry out original research that will help resolve important policy and clinical dilemmas at the intersection of ethics and the life sciences. Congrats, Glenn! …
by Suzanne M. Rivera, Ph.D. For legitimate reasons, the human research enterprise frequently is regarded with suspicion. Despite numerous rules in place to protect research participants’ rights and welfare, there is a perception that research is inherently exploitative and dangerous. Consequently, most people don’t participate in research. This is not only a fairness problem (few…
By Adriana Lee Benedict The 14th round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA, a multilateral trade agreement currently being negotiated by the USTR and 10 other countries) is currently underway in Leesburg, VA. Last month, KEI posted a brief video blog about an interesting provision (Article 8.2) of the TTPA’s leaked draft IP…
By Holly Fernandez Lynch Nir Eyal’s post below has teed up the issue of doctors refusing to accept patients for reasons that seem to be pretty questionable. The latest example has to do with obesity, but there are plenty of others having to do with vaccination status, sexual orientation, and the like. Sometimes these refusals…
By Michelle Meyer In legal scholarship and education, innovation law and policy is virtually synonymous with intellectual property in general, and with patent law in particular. This is curious and, I think, misguided. We expend considerable effort designing optimal incentives for innovation. We expend similar effort ensuring that socially useful knowledge, once produced, is widely…
