Category: Kevin Outterson

BU Law Conference on New Legal Challenges to Global Tobacco Control, Jan. 25, 2013

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Boston is a great city for health policy. On Jan. 25, BU Law hosts a conference on New Legal Challenges to Global Tobacco Control. Just a month later, Harvard hosts its own conference on the Global Governance of Tobacco (details here).

The BU Law conference  (announcement here; detailed schedule here) will focus on challenges rooted in constitutional law (First Amendment litigation in the US attacking FDA-required graphic images on tobacco packs); trade mark law (plain packaging in Australia); and global trade and investment treaties such as the Hong Kong-Australia Bilateral Investment Treaty and the WTO Agreements.  Speakers include some of the world’s leading public health experts on this topic:

  • Matthew Allen, Allen + Clarke Policy and Regulatory Specialists
  • Micah Berman, New England School of Law
  • Scott Burris, Temple University Beasley School of Law
  • Julien Chaisse, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Richard Daynard, Northeastern University School of Law
  • Samantha Graff, NPLAN
  • Jane Kelsey, University of Auckland Faculty of Law
  • Lara Khoury, McGill University Faculty of Law
  • Mark Levin, University of Hawai’i at Manoa William S. Richardson School of Law
  • Jonathan Liberman, Cancer Council Victoria
  • Benn McGrady, Georgetown University Law Center
  • Ted Mermin, Public Good Law Center
  • Kevin Outterson, BU School of Law
  • Robert Stumberg, Georgetown University Law Center
  • Allyn Taylor, Georgetown University
  • Tania Voon, University of Melbourne Law School
  • George Annas, BU School of Law and BU School of Public Health
  • Leonard Glantz, BU School of Law and BU School of Public Health
  • Wendy Mariner, BU School of Law and BU School of Public Health
  • Alexandra Roberts, BU School of Law
  • Keynote Speaker: Dr. Michael Siegel, BU School of Public Health

The conference is open to everyone; see the schedule for details. The conference papers will be published in the American Journal of Law & Medicine.

Twitter Round-Up (11/18-11/24)

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By Casey Thomson

After what we hope was a hearty meal (or at least a restful, happy holiday) this past Thanksgiving for all of our readers, we are back with this week’s Twitter round-up – just a few days behind schedule.

  • Daniel Goldberg (@prof_goldberg) tweeted an article by Stefan Fatsis on the different perspectives regarding child participation in tackle football. As Goldberg noted in his tweet, from the perspective of neuroethics, the choice is clear: tackle football (or American football) is harmful for kids. (11/19)
  • Frank Pasquale (@FrankPasquale) included a link to a piece describing why data from all clinical trials should be readily accessible to doctors, or the origins of the BMJ Open Data Campaign. The article used the case of the Tamiflu anti-flu drug as an example, where the article authors described their hurdles in communicating with the drug’s producers concerning drug test results while trying to review the efficacy of the drug through Cochrane Collaboration. (11/21)
  • Kevin Outterson (@koutterson) posted his article, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, concerning the path for new federal regulations for compounding pharmacies in the wake of the meningitis outbreak and the New England Compounding Center (NECC). (11/23)
  • Arthur Caplan (@ArthurCaplan) brought up a recent post concerning the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and their declaration that making birth control pills over-the-counter (OTC), rather than prescription, could reduce the rate of unplanned pregnancies in the United States (which has not changed in 20 years). While the change would not occur overnight, there are many consequences that remain unclear – including changes in price and insurance coverage. (11/23)
  • Michelle Meyer (@MichelleNMeyer) retweeted a link to David Shaywitz’s article, which noted the increased criticism and distrust facing industry studies as compared to those of university scientists. Shaywitz encouraged contextualization of industry criticism to recognize that such critiques often plague medical science in general, not just industry. (11/24)

Note: As a reminder from the last post, retweeting should not be read as an endorsement of or agreement with the content of the original tweet.

More religious objections to contraception coverage

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I wrote last week (at TIE) that corporations might have First Amendment or RFRA religious rights to object to contraception coverage. Now we have a second federal judge agreeing, this time on behalf of Tyndale Bible Publishers (complaint here; preliminary injunction here). The short answer:

The plaintiffs have therefore shown that the contraceptive coverage mandate substantially burdens their religious exercise.

The Tyndale opinion again focuses on the rights of the owners of the company (here, a family foundation) rather than the company itself:

This Court, like others before it, declines to address the unresolved question of whether for-profit corporations can exercise religion within the meaning of the RFRA and the Free Exercise Clause. See, e.g., First Nat’l Bank v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 777–78 n.14 (1978) (recognizing that corporations have First Amendment speech rights, but declining to “address the abstract question whether corporations have the full measure of rights that individuals enjoy under the First Amendment”); Stormans, Inc. v. Selecky, 586 F.3d 1109, 1119 (9th Cir.2009) (“We decline to decide whether a for-profit corporation can assert its own rights under the Free Exercise Clause …”); Church of Scientology of Cal. v. Cazares, 638 F.2d 1272, 1280 n.7 (5th Cir.1981) (same). Instead, the Court will assess whether Tyndale has standing to assert the free exercise rights of its owners…

Viewing the rights of Tyndale’s owners (in particular, those of the Foundation) as the basis for its RFRA claim, the Court finds that Tyndale has made a satisfactory showing of Article III standing.

The court also found “third party standing”

It bears emphasizing that if the Court accepted the defendants’ position, no Tyndale entity would have standing to challenge the contraceptive coverage mandate—not even the Foundation. This is because, in the defendants’ view, Tyndale—though directly injured by the regulation—cannot exercise religion, and the Foundation—though capable of exercising religion—is not directly injured by the regulation. The third-party standing doctrine serves to avoid such conundrums.

These cases are serious, but the threat is to mandatory contraception coverage, not the entire ACA.

Cross-posted from TIE

@koutterson

Twitter Round-Up (11/11-11/17)

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By Casey Thomson

Don’t just read the summaries – check out the tweets themselves! From now on, links to the original tweets will be included in our round-up. Additionally, as a reminder from the last post, retweeting should not be read as an endorsement of or agreement with the content of the original tweet. With that, read on for this week’s round-up…

  • Arthur Caplan (@ArthurCaplan) posted an article about the growing trend of paying for convenience in healthcare with privacy, sometimes without formal consent. The latest example (and the subject of this article) is palm-scanning at New York University Langone Medical Center. (11/11) [Note: Dan Vorhaus also tweeted this the next day.]
  • Frank Pasquale (@FrankPasquale) linked to a post on the potential valuables (medicines, solvents, chemical treatments) hidden amongst newly-discovered marine micro-organisms. With regulations hefty on land but largely non-existent for water, there are concerns that damage from harvesting could result in ecosystem damage or exploitation of water resource-rich developing nations. (11/11)
  • Dan Vorhaus (@genomics lawyer) brought up a link describing the “particularized consent approach” of the website my46, meant to facilitate the process of helping people decide what results of genetic testing to see and when to see such results. Combining this with his post about the direct-to-consumer genomics of 23andMe, it is clear that this is an area to watch. (11/12)
  • Daniel Goldberg (@prof_goldberg) exclaims his love for the term “empathotoxin” in conjunction with the link for this blog post. The post talks about the declining sense of empathy correlated with medical training as according to a research review by American Medicine, with results based on self-reporting. (11/12)
  • Kevin Outterson (@koutterson) tweeted an article about the oncoming scrutiny likely to hit Congress in the throngs of the current meningitis outbreak. While state boards and the F.D.A. are receiving much of the onslaught as a result of their lax oversight, Congress has hindered stronger regulation for drug compounders particularly in regards to defining the F.D.A.’s policing authority – and thus, say some, is partly deserving of blame. (11/14)
  • Daniel Goldberg (@prof_goldberg) also linked to an article that talked of lessening the gaps between the mainstream views concerning disability (the “outside” view) and those within the disability community (the “inside” view) when considering law. By proposing a certain set of “framing rules” facilitated by input from the inside view, nondisabled people can make more informed decisions regarding the relationship to disability. (11/14)
  • Dan Vorhaus (@genomicslawyer) posted an article that followed up on an earlier tweet from our weekly round-ups detailing China’s new draft regulation for human genetic materials, including but not limited to organs. (11/15)
  • Frank Pasquale (@FrankPasquale) included a link to the The New York Times piece on the massive drug shortages plaguing the nation’s healthcare system.  Pasquale noted in his tweet that organizations which purchase on behalf of groups, often for hospitals, may be contributing to this shortage. (11/17)

Congratulations to the 2012 Health Law Scholars!

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This past weekend was the eleventh annual Health Law Scholars Workshop, and I wanted to take a minute to congratulate the 2012 Scholars: Alena Allen (Memphis), Leo Beletsky (Northeastern), Christina Ho (Rutgers-Newark), and Lindsay Wiley (American).  Each scholar had two hours dedicated to a discussion of their work, with expert reviewers including Rebecca Dresser (Wash U), Elizabeth Weeks Leonard (Georgia), Kevin Outterson (Boston University), Ted Ruger (Penn), and Rob Schwartz (New Mexico/Hastings), along with the health law faculty at the Center for Health Law Studies, Saint Louis University.  The Workshop is sponsored by the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics and SLU’s Center for Health Law Studies, and scholars are selected by a health law committee through blind peer review.  To date there have been 44 scholars, including many contributors to Bill of Health.