Political Map of South American Continent.

Regional Insights for Constitutionalizing the Right to Health in Chile

By Alicia Ely Yamin                                                    

Chile is one of the few countries in Latin America that has not amended its constitution post-dictatorship. That is set to change on October 25th when the country will hold a plebiscite on constitutional reform.

Any new Chilean Constitution may well follow the path of constitutional reform elsewhere in the region. These reforms, which occurred in the late 1980s and 1990s, and more recently in Mexico, expanded social rights through expanding enumerations and/or incorporation of international human rights law into the constitutional text through “constitutional blocs” (bloques de constiucionalidad).

In situating what is at stake, it is important to recall that the evolution of health rights in Latin America is closely linked to contestation over boundaries between private morality and public policy, between individual and social responsibility, and between the role of the state and markets.

Read More

Santiago, Chile.

The Democratic Case for Social Rights in Chile’s Constitutional Moment

By Koldo Casla

We live an era of nationalistic, angry, and xenophobic challenges to human rights, a time in which the “will of the people” is maliciously presented as contrary to human rights. We have seen human rights backlashes consistent with this instrumentalization of the so-called popular will in India, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, the Philippines, the U.S., the U.K. — the list, sadly, could go on and on.

Chile, however, presents a test case for the opposite, an opportunity to refresh the democratic case for social rights, not due to natural or international law, but because human rights is what people demand.

Read More

Washington DC.,USA, April 26, 1989. Supporters for and against legal abortion face off during a protest outside the United States Supreme Court Building during Webster V Health Services.

Event Video from “Reproductive Rights in 2020”

On July 16, 2020, the Petrie-Flom Center hosted a moderated discussion on recent developments for reproductive rights in the U.S.

2020 has been a notable year for reproductive rights, with the Supreme Court deciding June Medical Services v. Russo, and the COVID-19 pandemic affecting access to abortion, sexual health, and reproductive health services.

Watch panelists Mary Ziegler, Jamille Fields AllsbrookLouise P. King, and Julie Rikelman discuss these developments in a conversation moderated by Emily Bazelon.

Assessing legal responses to COVID-19 graphic.

New Report Assesses Legal Responses to COVID-19

Assessing Legal Responses to COVID-19 is a new, in-depth analysis of U.S. legal and policy responses to the pandemic.

In the report, 50 top national experts offer a new assessment of the U.S. policy response to the crisis. The research details the widespread failure of the country’s leadership in planning and executing a cohesive, national response, and how the crisis exposed weaknesses in the nation’s health care and public health systems.

The report’s authors also offer recommendations on how federal, state and local leaders can better respond to COVID-19 and future pandemics. Their proposals recommend how to strengthen executive leadership for a stronger emergency response; expand access to public health, health care, and telehealth; fortify protections for workers; and implement a fair and humane immigration policy.

Read More

Cartoon of contact tracing for COVID-19.

COVID-19, Misinformation, and the Law in Nigeria

By Cheluchi Onyemelukwe

The spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria has been paralleled by the spread of misinformation and disinformation about the novel coronavirus. In Nigeria, information casting doubt on the existence of the coronavirus is spread especially through social media channels, but also through other informal channels.

Some religious leaders with considerable influence have doubted the existence of the virus, and shared conspiracy theories on its origins and the interventions instituted to prevent further spread of the virus. Others have taken to social media to express concerns about the Nigerian government and a perceived lack of transparency. For example, the government has received criticism for continuing its school feeding program during the pandemic, at a time when schools are closed, children are at home, and the country’s financial resources are scarce.

Unproven cures and interventions are also regularly propagated, especially via social media channels such as WhatsApp. For instance, hydroxychloroquine, a drug used for malaria previously, has been touted as a cure, despite evidence to the contrary, prompting some to stockpile it and instigating much discussion on social media.

Read More

corridor with hospital beds

Hospitals Bear the Costs of Detention and Incarceration

By Blake N. Shultz and Pooja Agrawal

While individuals with recent criminal justice involvement represent only 4.2% of the population, they make up 8.5% of all emergency department (ED) expenditures, which translates to an additional $5.2 billion in annual spending across the health care sector.

The federal government has complete control over access to medical care for incarcerated individuals and immigrants in detention facilities, and is primarily responsible for the quality of the sanitation, nutrition, and shelter accommodations. Despite this level of control, conditions in many detention facilities and prisons are exceptionally poor.

Over eighty percent of recently released prisoners are uninsured, and upon re-entry into society they struggle to obtain quality medical care for both pre-existing conditions and those that may have been caused or exacerbated by detention.  As they often do not have a medical home, upon release many will present to emergency departments (EDs) for their health care needs, and, because of the low rates of insurance coverage, hospitals are left to pick up the bill for the gaps in care created by the government’s deficiencies.

The disaggregation of government detention facilities and financial responsibility for downstream health care costs of released individuals creates a “regulatory moral hazard,” in which the government has little incentive to invest in the health and health care of incarcerated and detained individuals. In the absence of federal reform incentivizing investment and reducing cost-shifting to the health care sector, hospital systems should build interdisciplinary care teams focused on formerly incarcerated and detained individuals while investing in comprehensive, community-based health care.

Read More

NHS building

The Long and Winding Road of NHS Complaints System Reform

By John Tingle

Sadly, the NHS (National Health Service) has not been able to get its complaint system right, even after decades of trying.

Despite several reports published over two and half decades detailing the challenges the complaint system faces, as well as potential solutions, it still is not fit for purpose. Most recently, the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has produced a report on complaint handling with a focus on the NHS. It is a good, hard-hitting report, which spells out clearly the problems, difficulties, and opportunities to put things right with NHS complaints.

It is, however, another good NHS complaint system reform report in a long line of others. The other reports failed to change adequately the NHS complaints culture and there is little evidence to suggest that this one will succeed where the others have failed.

Read More

The Week in Health Law podcast logo twihl.com

TWIHL: Innovation and Protection: The Future of Medical Device Regulation, Episode 3

This is the last of three episodes of “Innovation and Protection: The Future of Medical Device Regulation,” a podcast miniseries created to replace the 2020 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These episodes highlight a selection of papers that were written for the conference, which was organized in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL) and the University of Arizona Health Law Program. All of the papers will be published in an edited volume.

This third episode looks at recent advances in medical device regulation in the U.S. and abroad, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on national and international medical device regulation.

First, Timo Minssen, Professor of Law and Director, Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL), University of Copenhagen and Researcher in Quantum Law, Lund University, interviews Helen Yu, Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Law and Associate Director of CeBIL about her paper “Regulation of Digital Health Technologies in the EU: Intended vs. Actual Use.”

Minssen returns to talk with Janos Meszaros, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Taiwan’s National Academy of Science about “Challenges at the Interface of EU Medical Device Regulation and the GDPR: Do the Rules on Privacy and Scientific Research Impair the Safety of AI Medical Devices?”

Finally, Christopher Robertson discusses “Preventing Medical Device-Borne Disease Outbreaks: Improving High-Level Disinfection Policies for Scopes and Probes,” with author Preeti Mehrotra, Attending Physician, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Instructor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

The Week in Health Law Podcast from Nicolas Terry is a commuting-length discussion about some of the more thorny issues in health law and policy. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts or Google Play, listen at Stitcher Radio, SpotifyTunein or Podbean.

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 me on Twitter @nicolasterry or @WeekInHealthLaw.

Pets and COVID-19 youtube slide.

Pets and COVID-19: Video Explainer with Tara Sklar

Are our furry friends at risk of contracting the novel coronavirus? Can pets potentially transmit COVID-19 to their human owners?

In this video explainer produced by the James E. Rogers College of Law of The University of Arizona, Tara Sklar, Professor of Health Law and Director of the Health Law & Policy Program, discusses these issues with Dr. Andrew T. Maccabe, Chief Executive Officer of the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC).

Dr. Maccabe also explains the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration between veterinarians and physicians in understanding and controlling the coronavirus pandemic, as well as future zoonotic disease outbreaks. Watch the full video below:

a pile of vaccine vials and a needle

COVID-19 Vaccine Advance Purchases Explained

Cross-posted from Written Description, where it originally appeared on August 5, 2020. 

By Nicholson PriceRachel SachsJacob S. Sherkow, and Lisa Larrimore Ouellette

No vaccine for the novel coronavirus has been approved anywhere. Nevertheless, governments and international organizations around the world are announcing deals for billions of dollars to procure tens of millions of doses of vaccines from companies that are still running clinical trials, including a $2.1 billion deal with Sanofi and GSK announced by the US on Friday. What’s going on? And what do these deals tell us about innovation policy for COVID-19 vaccines? In this post, we lay out the landscape of COVID-19 vaccine pre-purchases; we then turn to the innovation impact of these commitments, and finish by asking what role patents and compulsory licensing have to play.
Read More