Day: October 21, 2016

Monday, 10/24, HLS Health Law Workshop with Lindsay Wiley

Jennifer Minnich Leave a comment

October 24, 2016 5-7 PM
Hauser Hall, Room 104
Harvard Law School, 1575 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Presentation: “Social Norms, Legal Foundations, and Noncommunicable Disease Prevention”

To request a copy of the paper in preparation for the workshop, please contact Jennifer Minnich at jminnich@law.harvard.edu.

Lindsay Wiley is Associate Professor of Law at the Washington College of Law at American University. She teaches torts, health law, and public health law. Her research focuses on access to health care and healthy living conditions in the U.S. and globally. She serves on the Board of Directors of the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics and the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists. Prior to joining the faculty at WCL, Professor Wiley was the Global Health Law Program Director at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. She had also previously worked at the Center for Law and the Public’s Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics, and Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman LLC in Baltimore, MD. She received her AB and JD from Harvard, where she served on the Harvard Law Review, and her MPH from Johns Hopkins.

MONDAY (10/24): Health Care after the Election

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff 2 Comments

presidential_nominees_slideHealth Care after the Election
October 24, 2016 12:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West AB (2019)
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Description

As we approach the 2016 presidential election and change of administration, there are many questions about the future of health policy that the 45th President and Congress will have to address starting in 2017. This event brings together health care experts from both sides of the aisle to discuss what health care will – and should – look like under the next administration.

Possible topics for discussion include:

  • The Affordable Care Act
  • Drug pricing
  • Delivery system reform
  • Innovation and research funding/NIH
  • Mental health
  • Public health

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Voluntary Firearm Waiting Periods Could Save Thousands of Lives

sthomas Leave a comment

By Shailin Thomas

Suicide is one of today’s most pressing public health issues. It’s the second most common cause of death for those ages 15-34, and claims over 40,000 lives every year. Of those, a staggering 20,000 are the result of firearms. To put that in perspective, there are about 30,000 gun deaths overall in the United States each year, which means that self-inflicted fatalities make up over 60% of total domestic gun deaths. Of the most prevalent means of attempting suicide, firearms are by far the most lethal. Firearm suicide attempts end in death more than 85% of the time, whereas attempts by drug overdose — the most common method — are only fatal 3% of the time.

While suicides by firearm have been on the rise in recent years, there may be an easy way to substantially reduce their incidence. A new study out of the University of Alabama Birmingham by Vars, et al., suggests that allowing individuals at risk of suicide to put themselves on a voluntary “Do-Not-Sell’ list, which would result in a waiting period before they could acquire a firearm, could be effective in preventing suicide attempts. The researchers surveyed 200 patients at both in- and out-patient psychiatric facilities who had disorders associated with anxiety and depression, and found that nearly half of them would put themselves on a list which would preclude them from quickly accessing firearms in the event that they were contemplating suicide. This is particularly notable given that these were all Alabama residents — a state that ranks in the top 10 of Guns and Ammo’s list of the best states for gun owners. In other states with more robust gun control and fewer gun enthusiasts, the Do-Not-Sell rate could very well be higher.

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