February 15, 2018 - Bill of Health

Jake Sherkow on ‘The Week in Health Law’ Podcast

February 15, 2018February 15, 2018 Nicolas P. Terry Leave a comment

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We welcome Jacob Sherkow, a law professor at the Innovation Center for Law and Technology, at New York Law School, with affiliations at Columbia University and the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law. Jacob teaches a variety of courses related to intellectual property. His research focuses on how scientific developments, especially in the biosciences, affect patent law and litigation.

Jacob is a prolific scholar, the author of over two dozen articles on these and related topics in both traditional law reviews and scientific journals. (The latest include “Cancer’s IP,” a vital policy intervention.) A scholar capable of both “big picture” and very fine-grained analysis, he is a great guide for bridging the worlds of health care law & policy, and intellectual property. Our conversation begins with an excellent CRISPR primer before traversing some fascinating questions about gene-editing patent litigation around the world, licensing issues, and the broader array of regulatory issues generated by such emerging technologies.

The Week in Health Law Podcast from Frank Pasquale and Nicolas Terry is a commuting-length discussion about some of the more thorny issues in Health Law & Policy. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, listen at Stitcher Radio Tunein, or Podbean, or search for The Week in Health Law in your favorite podcast app. Show notes and more are at TWIHL.com. If you have comments, an idea for a show or a topic to discuss you can find us on Twitter @nicolasterry @FrankPasquale @WeekInHealthLaw.

NEW EVENT! Addiction, Neuroscience, and the Criminal Law: Commonwealth vs. Julie Eldred

February 15, 2018February 15, 2018 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Addiction, Neuroscience, and the Criminal Law: Commonwealth vs. Julie Eldred
February 28, 2018 5:15 PM – 7:15 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Room 1023
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Is addiction a disease? And does it matter for the criminal law? The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court now faces these questions in the potentially landmark case, Commonwealth vs. Julie Eldred. The Court must decide if it is constitutional for the criminal justice system to require addicted offenders to remain drug free. Is this requirement like asking a patient in cancer remission not to get cancer again? Or is it simply requiring someone to make better decisions? As the country faces an opioid epidemic, the case has drawn national attention.

Join us at Harvard Law School for a conversation with key legal and scientific experts involved in the case. Confirmed participants include: defense attorney Lisa Newman-Polk, and psychologist Dr. Gene Heyman, scientific expert in support of the Commonwealth.

Part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

Learn more about the event here!

Maps Outlining State Fair Housing Laws, State Landlord-Tenant Laws, and City Nuisance Property Laws are Now Available on LawAtlas

February 15, 2018February 15, 2018 Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research Leave a comment

Three new datasets covering housing related laws were published today on LawAtlas.org, the Center for Public Health Research website dedicated to empirical legal datasets. The three datasets are:

State Fair Housing Protections – covers all 50 states and the District of Columbia
City Nuisance Property Ordinances – covers the 40 most populous cities in the US
State Landlord-Tenant Laws – covers all 50 states and the District of Columbia

Each dataset is publicly available. You can explore the data using the site’s mapping tool that allows you to explore the elements of the law across jurisdictions or download the data as an excel spreadsheet without any cost. Each dataset is accompanied by a codebook, a research protocol, and a summary report.

State Fair Housing Protections

The federal Fair Housing Act, passed as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibits discrimination in housing-related transactions for individuals who are members of a protected class — these include race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. Forty-nine states and D.C. have adopted their own fair housing laws to expand upon these federal protections, such as prohibiting discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or source of income. These laws regulate which protected classes are included, the types of discriminatory actions that are prohibited, and when discrimination is exempt under the law.