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 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…
