By Scott Burris It’s hard to believe that after all these years, all the evidence, and all the reductions in HIV among injection drug users, we still only have 15 states that explicitly authorize syringe exchange programs (SEPs). (See LawAtlas for an interactive map.) CDC estimates we still have around 4,000 new cases a year…
This is Part 3 in a three-part series on gun laws, mental illness and violence in the United States. Read Part 1 and Part 2. By Jeffrey Swanson, PhD So what can the law do about gun violence? The US Supreme Court’s decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) and McDonald…
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 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…
This is Part 1 in a three-part series on gun laws, mental illness and violence in the United States. By Jeffrey Swanson, PhD Federal and state efforts to restrict firearms access to potentially dangerous people with mental illness have focused in recent years on extending the reach of states’ reporting to the National Instant Criminal…
By Scott Burris No, I mean it: this is a question to Bill of Health readers who know about the law on this topic. This week, a colleague handed me a palm card she’d been given at a subway station here in Philadelphia. “Cash for diabetic test strips” it read. Comparing prices on the company’s…
By Wendy Parmet It’s easy to see the value of including scientists in public health law research teams; most public health lawyers lack the training to conduct rigorous empirical research. It may be harder to see the need for adding lawyers to the research team, but their presence is no less critical. Sometimes scientists have…
By Jennifer Ibrahim, PhD, MPH An article by Julia Costich, MPA, JD, PhD, and Dana Patton, PhD, in the October 2012 edition of the American Journal of Public Health reveals the tip of the iceberg on a highly discussed and yet insufficiently researched topic: the legal infrastructure. While the team reports a significant impact of…
By Scott Burris The concept of “overcriminalization” is gaining traction across the political spectrum. The Heritage Foundation, which has a website devoted to the phenomenon, defines it as “the trend in America – and particularly in Congress – to use the criminal law to ‘solve’ every problem, punish every mistake (instead of making proper use…
By Scott Burris Over the past fifty years, law has become an important tool for promoting public health – and a site of dramatic social and political contests. Public health law has been an integral part of “great achievements” in public health that have saved, or enhanced, millions of lives. Increasingly, however, the public health…
