By Effy Vayena and Alessandro Blasimme In January 1999, Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems (now part of Oracle Corporation), announced that we should no longer be concerned with privacy, since consumers ‘have zero privacy anyway’ and should just ‘get over it.’ His argument, that in the era of information technology we have become unable…
We are thrilled to announce that Carmel Shachar, JD, MPH (HLS ’10, HSPH ’10) will join the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School as our next Executive Director. In this role, Carmel will be responsible for oversight of the Center’s sponsored research portfolio, event programming, fellowships, student engagement,…
By Kayte Spector-Bagdady, JD, MBE & Michele Gornick, PhD, MA On Thursday, April 6th, the FDA announced that it will allow the direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing company 23andMe to market “Genetic Health Risk” (GHR) tests for 10 diseases or conditions including early-onset Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases. This is in addition to 23andMe’s current offering of ancestry,…
By Seán Finan “What makes drug development long and expensive is the need to prove, beyond statistical doubt, that your damn drug works” Michael Gilman, Biotech Entrepreneur 2017 is going to be terrific. Tremendous, even. Things are going to change, big league. The new President has promised fantastic reforms to the drug industry. He’s going…
We are pleased to host this symposium featuring commentary from participants in the University of Minnesota’s Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences event, “How Patients Are Creating Medicine’s Future: From Citizen Science to Precision Medicine.” Below, Susan M. Wolf tees up the issues. All posts in the series will…
By Barbara J. Evans This post is part of a series on how patients are creating the future of medicine. The introduction to the series is available here, and all posts in the series are available here. The citizen science movement goes beyond merely letting people dabble in science projects. It involves giving regular people…
By Ernesto Ramirez This post is part of a series on how patients are creating the future of medicine. The introduction to the series is available here, and all posts in the series are available here. Personal health data has historically been controlled by the healthcare industry. However, much has changed in the last decade.…
By Kingshuk K. Sinha This post is part of a series on how patients are creating the future of medicine. The introduction to the series is available here, and all posts in the series are available here. While the promise and potential of precision medicine are clear, delivering on that promise and making precision medicine…
By Seán Finan Last week, I saw Dr Atul Gawande speak at Health Action 2017. Healthcare advocates and activists sat around scribbling notes and clutching at their choice of whole-food, cold-pressed, green and caffeinated morning lifelines. Gawande speaks softly, lyrically and firmly; the perfect bedside manner for healthcare advocates in these early days of the…
By Shailin Thomas Recently, I wrote about the rise of artificial intelligence in medical decision-making and its potential impacts on medical malpractice. I posited that, by decreasing the degree of discretion physicians exercise in diagnosis and treatment, medical algorithms could reduce the viability of negligence claims against health care providers. It’s easy to see why artificial…
