Event Description This panel joined together the fields of medicine, magic, and ethics. We explored how misinformation and disinformation about health is created and spread, and how expectation violation theory, a theory of communication that analyzes how individuals respond to unanticipated violations of social norms and expectations, can help to counteract these narratives. The panel also discussed…
The Health Law Policy, Bioethics, and Biotechnology Workshop provides a forum for discussion of new scholarship in these fields from the world’s leading experts. The workshop is led by Professor I. Glenn Cohen, and presenters come from a wide range of disciplines and departments. Harvard graduate students may register to take the workshop for course…
Event Description Voters, lawmakers, and healthcare providers are experimenting with legal approaches to accessing psychedelics. Some take medical approaches by allocating funds for research or leveraging controversial federal policies like right-to-try or expanded access. Others reduce criminal penalties or create regulatory systems outside the federal framework, allowing access to psychedelics for promoting mental and physical…
Event Description In recent years, a growing number of observers have raised concerns about conflicts of interests in the growing psychedelics industry. Beginning with a discussion of cases that have prompted calls for conflict of interest reform in psychedelics research and treatment, this panel will examine what it means to say that a therapist, researcher,…
Event Description As psychedelics are quickly becoming implemented into the Western therapeutic medical model, ethical codes and boundaries are essential to ensure safe practices with these substances. An important topic when thinking about this is informed consent. What is the role of power dynamics in informed consent for psychedelic-assisted therapies and research? Can an explicit…
Event Description The threat of violence in the sanctum of the hospital and in the outpatient setting is growing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 63% increase in violent attacks on health care providers between 2011 – 2018. National Nurses United, the country’s largest nursing group, reported that 48% of nurses reported violence in…
Event Description Psychedelics have recently become a serious topic of legal reform and intense commercial investment. In the past few years, dozens of cities and states have enacted or proposed legislation to decriminalize or regulate psychedelics like psilocybin, dimethyltryptamine, mescaline, and ibogaine. Meanwhile, billions of dollars are flowing into psychedelic companies that are researching, patenting,…
Event Description On November 3rd, we hosted a book talk and moderated discussion with author Lewis A. Grossman on his new book, Choose Your Medicine: Freedom of Therapeutic Choice in America, and respondent William M. Sage, Professor of Law and Medicine at Texas A&M University. In Choose Your Medicine, Grossman explores the history and impacts…
Event Description Neuroscience is playing a key role in legal decisions about children and young adults serving life sentences. The US Supreme Court relied upon research on adolescent brain development to bar execution and limit sentences of Life Without Possibility of Parole for crimes committed under age 18. However, the U.S. Supreme Court case Jones v….
Event Description As the U.S. Supreme Court reversed half a century of jurisprudence in Dobbs, rejecting a fundamental right to abortion, courts across Latin America have made progress in the opposite direction. A so-called “Green Wave” has swept across some of the most populous countries in a region that was formerly known for having the…
