By Rebecca Haffajee Sure enough, last Friday the American Beverage Association and others, represented by Latham & Watkins, sued to block Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on the sale of sugar-sweetened beverages larger than 16 oz at certain NYC vendors. The suit, filed in the NY Supreme Court, asserts that the Mayor bypassed the proper legislative process…
By Leslie P. Francis In 2007, motivated by concerns that pharmaceutical companies were not sharing negative data about what had been learned in clinical trials, Congress established enhanced reporting requirements. A series of articles published in January 2012 in the British Medical Journal demonstrates that data reporting remains deeply problematic, especially for industry-sponsored trials. (The…
We are pleased to announce plans for our annual conference, this year entitled: “The Food and Drug Administration in the 21st Century.” This one and a half day event will take place Friday and Saturday, May 3-4, 2013, at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For details on the event and the call for proposals,…
This is Part 2 in a three-part series on gun laws, mental illness and violence in the United States. Read Part 1. By Jeffrey Swanson, PhD It is hard to find good news in our nation’s gun violence statistics, but here’s this: If somebody shoots you today, your chances of survival are about 83 percent…
By Katie Kraschel Last week NPR covered a story highlighting how medical education is morphing in order to adapt to the unmet demand for primary care physicians driven (at least in part) by the increased access to primary care that will be ushered in under the ACA. It may be surprising to some to learn…
By I. Glenn Cohen As the New York Times reported this week, in an article entitled “Another Use for Rapid Home H.I.V. Test: Screening Sexual Partners,” some in the public health community are exploring the ramifications for a use of the new OraQuick home HIV test that the company has been somewhat coy about: using…
By David Orentlicher During the debate over the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration and other proponents of electronic health records (EHRs) cited a RAND study projecting cost-savings of $80 billion a year from EHRs. More recent data have cast doubt on those estimates. In March, for example, a study in Health Affairs found that…
By Jennifer S. Bard Being in my native land of Connecticut reminds me that Mark Twain is famously, if inaccurately, quoted as saying that everyone talks about the weather but no one ever does anything about it. Nowhere is this concept more true today than in the handwringing over the coming shortage of physicians following…
By Rebecca Haffajee As many are aware, the New York City Board of Health recently approved Major Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) over 16 ounces in size sold at city restaurants, delis, sports venues, movie theaters, and street carts. This “soda ban” is set to go into effect on March 12, 2013….
By Scott Burris A law professor is usually thrilled to have an article cited by the Supreme Court. An empirical researcher will, likewise, be pleased that evidence he or she helped create shapes a decision of the highest court of the land. But maybe not always. Today I learned that the Supreme Court cited a…
