Month: January 2015

Caffeine and the Law

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By Emily Largent

Generally speaking, law school goes more smoothly when the law student is caffeinated.  Consider that Justice Elena Kagan was known at Harvard Law School as the “coffee dean” for instituting free coffee for students (and, as an aside, expects to be known as the “frozen yogurt justice” for bringing frozen yogurt to the SCOTUS cafeteria).

Last year, the deaths of Logan Stiner and James Wade Sweatt drew attention to another place where caffeine intersects with the law: the regulation (or lack thereof) of powdered caffeine by the FDA.  Both men died after ingesting powdered caffeine.  One teaspoon of powdered pure caffeine is roughly equivalent to 25 cups of coffee.  Manufacturers encourage consumers to take between 1/16 and 1/64 teaspoon (see, e.g., here), though measuring such minute amounts with common kitchen tools may be impossible.  On it’s blog, FDA observes that the people most drawn to powdered pure caffeine are “children, teenagers, and young adults.”  It is not clear how common it is for individuals to overdose on caffeine powder, as the cause of death may be listed as “heart attack” in many cases.

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Cost Containment and Cost Shifting

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By David Orentlicher
[Cross-posted at Health Law Profs.]

With Harvard professors protesting their increased responsibility for health care costs, we are seeing just the most visible aspect of the recurring cycle described in “Tragic Choices.” As Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt observed in that book, society tries to defuse societal conflict by hiding its rationing choices through implicit forms of rationing. Thus, for example, health care insurers relied on managed care organizations in the 1990’s to contain health care costs with the premise that managed care would preserve health care access and quality while squeezing the fat out of the health care system.

But after a time, the public realizes what’s going on and rebels against the implicit rationing policy. Hence, managed care’s effective cost containment strategies, such as limited networks of physicians or primary care gatekeeping, were dumped, and health care costs began to climb again.

What did health care insurers turn to after abandoning serious managed care? Shifting more of the costs of health care to patients through higher deductibles and higher copayments. Insurers didn’t need to identify limits on their coverage because individuals would respond to their higher out-of-pocket costs by hesitating to seek care. Costs would be contained by “market forces” rather than rationing. But the Harvard professors and other Americans are now rebelling against the shifting-of-costs policy, just as Calabresi and Bobbitt predicted in 1978. (Indeed, they even included the shifting of costs as an example of an implicit rationing strategy.) Read More

The People of the State of New York v. Actavis: Making a Hard-Switch Procompetitive

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By Ryan Abbott

Actavis is back in the spotlight regarding its allegedly anticompetitive behavior. Last month, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an injunction against Actavis and its subsidiary, Forest Laboratories LLC based on the New York Attorney General’s “product hopping” suit.

The suit concerns Actavis’ attempt to extend monopoly protection for its drug Namenda. Namenda is one of only a few FDA approved drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, and the only approved drug in a class of medications that act on the glutamatergic system by blocking NMDA receptors. Namenda is also Actavis’ largest revenue generating drug; it brought in $1.5 billion in sales last year. Unfortunately for Actavis, Namenda’s patent protection is due to expire in 2015. Once the patent protection for Namenda has expired, Actavis should ordinarily expect to see a dramatic reduction in sales revenue, as much as 90% in the first year, as consumers switch to a lower-cost generic version.

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A Physician Fights Surgery

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Physician and bioethicist Carla C. Keirns described the potentially dangerous impact of medicalization on her own childbirth in the Narrative Matters section of Health Affairs this month. A segment of that writing was reproduced in the Washington Post yesterday.

In each piece, Keirns outlines the challenges she faced in vaginally delivering her son in a hospital environment that seemed committed to performing a caesarian section. Particularly given Keirns’ expertise in and familiarity with health care, the lack of patient-centered care in the story is striking. Several staff suggested that surgery was a foregone conclusion while others appeared unprepared for her son’s long-awaited arrival.

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Monthly Round-Up of What to Read on Pharma Law and Policy

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By Ameet Sarpatwari and Aaron S. Kesselheim

Each month, the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School reviews the peer-reviewed medical literature to identify interesting empirical studies, in-depth analyses, and thoughtful editorials on pharmaceutical law and policy.

Below are the papers identified from December. The selections feature topics ranging from access to clinical trials data, to pharmacy-based interventions to reduce primary medication non-adherence, to the impact of out-of-pocket spending caps on the non-elderly with private group health insurance. A full posting of abstracts/summaries of these articles may be found on our website.

  1. Bonini S, Eichler HG, Wathion N, Rasi G. Transparency and the European Medicines Agency—sharing of clinical trial data. N Engl J Med. 2014 Dec 25;371(26):2452-2455.
  2. Fischer MA, Choudhry NK, Bykov K, Brill G, Bopp G, Wurst AM, Shrank WH. Pharmacy-based interventions to reduce primary medication nonadherence to cardiovascular medications. Med Care. 2014 Dec;52(12):1050-1054.

  3. Kesselheim AS, Huybrechts KF, Choudhry NK, Fulchino LA, Isaman DL, Kowal MK, Brennan TA. Prescription Drug Insurance Coverage and Patient Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review. Am J Public Health. 2014 Dec 18:e1-e14. [Epub ahead of print]

  4. Nissen SE. Commentary: Confidentiality of interim trial data-The emerging crisis. Clin Trials. 2014 Dec 18. [Epub ahead of print]

  5. Notenboom K, Beers E, van Riet-Nales DA, Egberts TC, Leufkens HG, Jansen PA, Bouvy ML. Practical Problems with Medication Use that Older People Experience: A Qualitative Study. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2014 Dec;62(12):2339-2344.

  6. Riggs KR, Buttorff C, Alexander GC. Impact of Out-of-Pocket Spending Caps on Financial Burden of those with Group Health Insurance. J Gen Intern Med. 2014 Dec 4. [Epub ahead of print]

  7. Zarin DA, Tse T, Sheehan J. The Proposed Rule for U.S. Clinical Trial Registration and Results Submission.N Engl J Med. 2014 Dec 24. [Epub ahead of print]

A Right to Die? The M.D. Case Before the Argentine Supreme Court

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by Martín Hevia

In 2015, the Argentine Supreme Court is to hear a case involving the right to die, death with dignity, and informed consent. Because of a car accident in the Province of Neuquén, M.D., the patient, has been in a permanent, irreversible, vegetative state for 18 years. His sisters and curators have requested the discontinuation of the vital supportive measures which maintained M.D alive in an artificial way.

This will not be the first time that the Supreme Court hears a case of death with dignity. In 2012, the Court heard the case of Albarracini Nieves, who was unconscious when admitted to a hospital in Buenos Aires. The physicians established that a blood transfusion was necessary. But, as Albarracini belonged to the cult “Jehovah’s Witnesses”, he had had made a statement before a public notary in 2008 where he expressed he would not accept any blood transfusions even if his life were in danger. His father requested a cautionary measure that would order the transfusion to be practiced. The first instance court admitted the solicited measure, considering that although Albarracini had expressed that he refused an eventual transfusion, he was not “in a condition to make decisions with full discernment.”The case then reached the Supreme Court, which argued that there were no reasons to doubt over the current validity of Albarracini’s expression of will and that there was no evidence that he would not have considered the significance of his decision.The Court argued that “…this Court has clearly established that Article 19 of the National Constitution grants the sphere of freedom, within which he can freely adopt fundamental decisions about himself without any State or third parties interference, as long as those decisions do not violate third parties’ rights.”The Court stated that“The possibility of accepting or refusing a specific treatment, or selecting an alternative form of treatment, is part of self-determination and personal autonomy; that patients have the right to choose options according to their own values or points of view, even when they may seem irrational or imprudent, and that free choice must be respected.”

The M.D. case is different in that it is difficult to prove the patient’s will – unlike in the Albarracini Nieves case – because there is not a patient’s written statement on whether it is appropriate for him to continue or not certain medical treatment to keep him alive. The Superior Court of Justice of the Province of Neuquén has decided on the case invoking the 2009 Patients´ Rights Act: according to this law, the sisters have standing to grant informed consent in the name of their brother.

The Supreme Court and Argentine lower courts have interpreted the National Constitution and concluded that it grants patients a wide range of autonomous choice as regards their autonomy, reflected in their right to refuse medical treatment.  On that basis, the Supreme Court will probably confirm the decision of the lower court.

Worth Reading This Week

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By Nicolas Terry

 

Who Will Own Primary Care in 2016?

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By Nicolas Terry

Health reform may have signaled the shift from hospital-based “sick” care to primary care and “wellness” but the ACA failed to provide a detailed roadmap. All we know for sure is that primary care (PC) will be hugely important. Increasingly it also seems that it will look quite different. “Old” PC is being battered; Medicaid primary care physicians (PCP) saw their the two-year ACA bonuses expire in December, the OIG just reported that way too many Medicaid-listed doctors are not taking new patients, and the coverage-doesn’t-equal-access mantra is born out by persistent reports of PCP shortages. If PC as we have known it is not going to step up to the plate, what is the “new” model and who will end up owning it?

The ACA gave hospitals both good (fewer uninsureds in ERs, Medicaid expansion) and bad news (fewer profitably occupied beds because of HAC and readmission penalties). Not surprisingly there was a sharp increase in hospitals buying PCP practices. In part this was just hospitals following the money as usual, looking to roll these practices into their new ACOs. But, longer term strategies also persisted, such as strengthening networks, intercepting patients before they turn up in ERs, and creating local or regional dominant positions. Smaller PCP practices have also been more willing to sell as they faced financial regulatory disincentives (such as meaningful use penalties) if they continued as independents.

However, we are seeing hospitals doing more than increasing the number of hospital-based clinics. Many are also opening their own free-standing urgent care clinics, the “new” PC. There are several models, including full ownership as with the Intermountain Healthcare group or, perhaps for those late to the game, strategic partnerships with urgent care specialists like Premier Health or MedSpring. Read More

Mental Health in Law School – Part II

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By Deborah Cho

We’ve come a long way in the area of mental health over the past several years. Notably, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 did great work to place mental health on more equal footing with physical health in the health insurance arena.  Still, there is much work to be done to raise awareness and decrease stigma so that treatment is sought appropriately.

A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a physician about some of the difficulties in addressing mental health with his patients.  He expressed disappointment at a recent conversation he had with a patient who refused to take his psychiatric medications.  As the physician recounted the story to me, he was frustrated with his patient’s misconception that “successful people don’t have mental health problems.”  Even worse, that misconception seemed to imply that in order to be successful, when one does have a mental health issue it is better to suffer through it than it is to seek help.  At the time, hearing this story was particularly upsetting for me as a law student because I felt that we were receiving and even propagating a similar message during a rather remarkable final examinations period.

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