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…
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 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…
Learn more about the FDA’s emergency response to issues such as COVID-19, monkeypox, and infant formula. On September 20th, we hosted a discussion of these topics and more with FDA Principal Deputy Chief Counsel Mark Raza in conversation with PFC Faculty Director, I. Glenn Cohen. Panelists This event was sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law…
Event Description The COVID-19 pandemic has reinvigorated the national and global conversation about disrupting the panic-neglect cycle in public health. It has also shown us that no single sector can do this alone—for instance, the rapid delivery of mRNA vaccines and the establishment of large-scale, end-to-end testing infrastructure for COVID-19 were products of private-sector innovation…
Event Description The Supreme Court decision for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has shocked the country. The United States is now living in a post-Roe world, and the right to abortion has lost its constitutional protection. In this discussion, we analyzed this landmark decision, its underpinnings, and its impacts for abortion and other areas of law. Audience…
Diagnosing in the Home: The Ethical, Legal, and Regulatory Challenges and Opportunities of Digital Diagnostics and Therapeutics Outside of Traditional Clinical Settings Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, health care delivery was already shifting away from the clinic and into the home, utilizing telehealth, wearable sensors, ambient surveillance, and other products. The COVID-19 pandemic has…
