As everyone and their brother expected, SCOTUS has just decided to take up two cases challenging the contraceptives coverage mandate: Hobby Lobby, in which the 10th Circuit ruled in favor of the religiously-objecting (but secular, for-profit) employer, and Conestoga, in which the 3rd Circuit went the other direction, maintaining that “for-profit, secular corporations cannot engage…
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a newly revised Declaration of Helsinki, just announced today in a special online communication from JAMA. The revisions are accompanied by commentary from Paul Ndebele and Joe Millum, Dave Wendler, and Zeke Emanuel. Take a look. Still no word on the ANPRM to the Common Rule, though…
Our baby is 1! In September 2012, we launched Bill of Health with the goal of becoming your go-to place for news, commentary, scholarship, and debate in the fields of health law policy, biotechnology, and bioethics. We rounded up authors from Cambridge to Spain, from seasoned academics and practitioners in law and medicine to students…
In case you missed it, NYT had an interesting Op-Ed on Friday that addressed the inclusion of money for fertility treatments in divorce settlements – and made some suggestions about how to address fertility issues in prenups. Take a look here. As prices drop, I wonder if/when it will become commonplace for women to start…
Given my recent piece in the New England Journal on discrimination against patients, particularly obese patients in the context of the Americans with Disabilities Act, I found this NY Times story particularly interesting: Disability and Discrimination at the Doctor’s Office. The Times story focuses on patients who are disabled in more traditional ways, but indicates that…
Take a look at the answer this physician received about breaking his promise of confidentiality to a patient. The New York Times’ Ethicist describes this as a modern problem, but it seems to me this is age-old. And although the confession was not medical, the nature of the doctor-patient relationship and the historical trust it…
Last but not least! Our final conference panel focused on “Addressing the Challenges of and Harnessing New Technologies,” and was moderated by Fran Miller. We heard first from Margaret Riley on “Twenty-First Century Technology with Twentieth Century Baggage: FDA Regulation of Regenerative Medicine.” Riley explained that regenerative medicine (i.e., the use of pluripotent stem cells)…
[Posted on behalf of Holly Fernandez Lynch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center (with the same disclaimer about the off-the-cuff nature of live blogging)] For the last plenary session of the conference, we heard from Susan Winckler, President and CEO of the Food and Drug Law Institute, who discussed “Other Influencers of Food and Drug Law” – namely the…
Another great conference session this afternoon: “Timing Is Everything: Balancing Access and Uncertainty.” This one was moderated by Jeff Skopek, with presentations by Shannon Gibson, Trudo Lemmens, and Efthimios Parasidis. First, we heard from Gibson and Lemmens on “Overcoming ‘Premarket Syndrome,’” AKA the various problems associated with relying solely on premarket data for safety and…
We’re well on our way into the Petrie-Flom Center’s Annual Conference, FDA in the 21st Century, and we’ll be live blogging the sessions today and tomorrow here at Bill of Health. Today’s sessions opened with a fantastic plenary from Peter Barton Hutt, who’s had more than five decades of experience with Food and Drug Law,…
