By Scott Burris In a well-known exchange, Richard Epstein argued that modern public health had strayed far outside its traditional and proper work of preventing epidemics and injuries into a realm of social engineering in which it lacked both competence and legitimacy. William Novak, the historian, disagreed, emphasizing the continuity of our public quest for…
By Scott Burris Law has been an extremely effective mode of public health intervention in the last thirty years, which means that proponents of its use have won more than a few tough political battles. Nonetheless, it is hard to escape the fact that, in recent years, the public health side has been getting killed…
By Scott Burris Phil Coffin and Sean Sullivan have published a cost-effectiveness study of interventions that equip heroin users and others to administer naloxone in the event of a witnessed opioid overdose. Naloxone is the standard antidote, and can easily be administered by lay people with a minimum amount of training. Family members and friends…
By Art Caplan [cross-posted from his NBCNews Vitals column] Two big events recently took place in the world of food: The Food and Drug Administration decreed that genetically engineered salmon wouldn’t harm the environment and McDonald’s announced that its McRib sandwich is back on the menu. The FDA’s announcement paves the way for the first approval of…
By Scott Burris Between budget cuts and “nanny state” attacks, it’s easy to feel that public health is a perennial political loser. As for the courts, the first two constitutional amendments alone are throwing up enough barriers to reasonable health regulation to keep us on the defensive for years. In this series of posts about…
By Cristiane Avancini Alves A court in Brazil recently held that the mother of a drug-addicted adult woman (who is pregnant and who already has three children) may seek the court’s authorization for the tubal ligation of her daughter provided the daughter is unable to manage her own affairs. The Brazilian health system has received an…
By Scott Burris Early in January, Lindsay Wiley and the Network for Public Health Law will convene a group of health law professors and (and a few colleagues from public health law practice) in Washington. They will be spending a couple of days advancing a conversation about how academic health lawyers can make a bigger…
Be Ken Outterson Boston is a great city for health policy. On Jan. 25, BU Law hosts a conference on New Legal Challenges to Global Tobacco Control. Just a month later, Harvard hosts its own conference on the Global Governance of Tobacco (details here). The BU Law conference (announcement here; detailed schedule here) will focus…
By Abby Moncrieff I grew up in a family of gun hobbyists. One of my older brother’s most treasured Christmas presents from childhood is a rifle that was used in WWII; my dad had a collection of several dozen handguns, shotguns, and rifles, including a semi-automatic AR-15 “assault rifle” and a pearl-plated revolver and holster…
By Scott Burris, JD “I have an absolute right to drive any vehicle I want, on any road, at any time, at any speed, and under any conditions.” That’s an argument few people would take seriously. And few people would take seriously the argument that we should ban or substantially limit automobile use, despite the…
