By Emily Largent On Wednesday, the FDA published the “Pregnancy and Lactation Labeling Rule” (PLLR), which “requires changes to the content and format for information presented in prescription drug labeling . . . to assist health care providers in assessing benefit versus risk and in subsequent counseling of pregnant women and nursing mothers who need…
By Emily Largent This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and this semester, I have been fortunate enough to take a class on the Civil Rights Movement with Professor Randall Kennedy. This has prompted me to examine the influence of race on healthcare delivery in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. Racism infected all…
By Emily Largent I previously wrote about California Proposition 46–which proposed to raise the cap on pain and suffering awards in malpractice cases from $250,000 to $1.1 million, require doctors to check a statewide database of drug prescriptions before prescribing some narcotics, and require doctors to undergo random drug and alcohol testing–here. What happened? On Tuesday, voters “soundly defeated a…
By Emily Largent California Proposition 46, the Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Cap and Drug Testing Doctors Initiative, is on the November 4, 2014 ballot. If approved by voters, the initiative would: increase the state’s cap on non-economic damages that can be assessed in medical negligence lawsuits; require hospitals to test certain physicians for drugs and alcohol; and…
By Emily Largent Perhaps you already knew that October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Did you also know that it is: Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Eye Injury Prevention Month, Health Literacy Month, Home Eye Safety Month, National Bullying Prevention Month, National Down Syndrome Awareness Month, National Medical Librarians Month, National Physical Therapy Month, and…
By Emily Largent The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) recently conducted a survey of gay and bisexual men in the U.S. focusing on attitudes, knowledge, and experiences with HIV/AIDS. The survey results, released Thursday, can be found here. I was most interested in the finding that only a quarter of those surveyed know about PrEP (pre-exposure…
By Emily Largent Although many lament that the ubiquity of smartphones has contributed to a recent decline in etiquette, a study published this week in Science suggests that smartphones’ ubiquity may make them a valuable–if surprising–tool for studying modern morality. Most moral judgment experiments are lab-based and driven by hypotheticals. By contrast, this was a field experiment that focused on the moral judgments people make…
By Emily Largent In “Is it ethical to hire sherpas when climbing Mount Everest?,” a short piece out today in the British Medical Journal, I suggest that the question of whether it is ethical to pay sherpas to assume risks for the benefit of relatively affluent Western climbers is a variant of cases–common in medical ethics–where…
By Emily Largent As of August 5, 2014, all foods labeled “gluten-free” must meet the requirements of the gluten-free labeling final rule. The rule implements a portion of the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004, Title II of Public Law 108-282, which directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue a regulation to…
The Petrie-Flom Center is pleased to welcome our new 2014-2015 Student Fellows. In the coming year, each fellow will pursue independent scholarly projects related to health law policy, biotechnology, and bioethics under the mentorship of Center faculty and fellows. They will also be regular contributors here at Bill of Health on issues related to their research.
