In “Company seeks to make sperm banks safer,” a recent article in the Boston Globe, Bill of Health blogger Dov Fox recently weighed in on new companies that propose to screen sperm donor DNA in an effort to reduce the chance that children conceived with donated sperm will have childhood genetic diseases: Dov Fox, an assistant…
By The Petrie-Flom Center As public health concerns over obesity and diabetes continue to rise, physicians, public health organizations, and medical educators are thinking out of the box — and into the kitchen and grocery store. Two stories done by NPR this week feature programs aimed to increase physician influence in patient dietary choices. The…
By Kathleen West As the world watched Prince William place the new royal baby, reluctantly snug in his car seat, into a vehicle a few weeks ago, my thoughts were not limited to, “Oh, how cute!” After two months researching and collecting a dataset to capture the U.S. laws and regulations for child passenger restraint…
By Michele Goodwin Less than an hour ago, Indianapolis prosecutor, Mr. Terry Curry agreed to drop first degree murder charges against Bei Bei Shuai in an agreement that required her to plead to a misdemeanor. The case was a month away from trial in what would have been the first prosecution of a pregnant woman…
By Arthur Caplan Art Caplan has a new opinion piece up at nbcnews.com. In “Ethicist: Teens have high failure rates after organ transplants — but cut them some slack,” Caplan responds to a recent study showing that teen organ recipients have much higher failture rates than recipients in other age groups: Remember the long fight over whether Sarah…
By Leslie Francis A case from the employment discrimination world that might be of interest to health law folks is EEOC v. Houston Funding II, Ltd., 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 10933 (May 30, 2013). The employee in the case, Donnicia Venters, was told that her position had been filled when she returned to work post…
By Michelle Meyer UPDATE: A class action lawsuit has been filed in federal court against UAB providers and IRB members on behalf of infants enrolled in the SUPPORT study (through their parents). The Amended Complaint, which was filed May 20, can be found here. In addition, here are two more sets of reactions to the…
As of Friday, June 28, this post is closed to further comments. We want to thank the many readers who have engaged in a vigorous and civil discussion on the recent posts to the Bill of Health that engage questions related to the debate over vaccines. In general, we do not moderate discussions on the…
By Joanna Sax In President Obama’s State of the Union address, he discussed creating affordable pre-school to all children. Studies have shown that early childhood education is associated with academic success. This is an important policy initiative; it’s also very expensive. In an effort to reduce the disparity in the academic profiles of children, there may be some…
The New England Journal of Medicine has two new commentaries out on the SUPPORT study and arguing that OHRP has things all wrong – in a dangerous way. From the editors: “[OHRP’s] response is disappointing, because it does not take into account either the extent of clinical equipoise at the time the study was initiated…
