Tilpath Valley Biodiversity Park spreads over an area of 69.56 ha on the Southern Ridge that is contiguous with Aravalli ranges of Haryana, in south Delhi, New Delhi India.

Proposed Amendments Would Make Foreign Investment in India’s Biological Resources Easier

By Aparajita Lath

Indian lawmakers are currently debating proposed amendments that would make it easier for foreign investors to research and develop products from native biological resources, such as plants.

India is one of the 17 internationally recognized mega biodiversity countries, and hosts four of the 35 globally recognized biodiversity hotspots.

Since countries have sovereign rights over their biological resources, Indian companies enjoy easier access to and use of these biological resources for various commercial applications, including pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and biotechnology. Foreign companies and Indian companies with any foreign participation in share capital or management are strictly regulated.

Read More

Student fellows 2022-2023 cohort.

Petrie-Flom Welcomes 2022-2023 Student Fellows

(Clockwise from top left: Matt Chun, Sarah Gabriele, Katie Gu, Sanjay Reddy, Aparajita Lath)

We are excited to welcome a new group of Student Fellows to the Petrie-Flom Center family. These five students are a fantastic cohort of health law policy, biotechnology, and bioethics scholars who join us from across Harvard.

They each will undertake a year-long research project with mentorship from Center faculty and affiliates, and also will blog here at Bill of Health regularly. Keep an eye out for their bylines!

Read More

Happy physical education teacher talking to her students during a class at elementary school gym.

Bring Back the National School Population Fitness Survey

By Jack Becker

It’s 1955, the Cold War is heating up, and a popular magazine publishes an article titled “The Report that Shocked the President.” What could shock a seasoned leader like Dwight Eisenhower? A report about a potential missile gap? An early report on the gap between the Soviet and American space programs? Surprisingly (or, unsurprisingly, because the title of this post is a spoiler), it was the muscle gap.

In 1954, Hans Kraus and Bonnie Prudden published a study finding that 57.9% of American schoolchildren failed a minimum muscular fitness test, while only 8.7% of European schoolchildren failed the same test. The theory behind these results? Television, overprotective parents, inadequate school physical education, and an overall “plush” lifestyle in the United States.

Sound familiar? When you add in heightened concerns about screen time, it feels like nothing has changed. While modern metrics concentrate on physical activity instead of physical fitness, it’s clear that American children are still struggling. But history might offer potential solutions to this age-old problem.

Read More

A variety of protein shakes. Plastic scoops with powders.

Universal Basic Nutrient Income: Pros and Cons

By Jack Becker

Andrew Yang’s 2020 presidential run included a smorgasbord of unique stances. From “Empowering MMA Fighters” to a “Robo-Calling Text Line” to “Making Taxes Fun,” he made waves. But his biggest wave came from the “Freedom Dividend,” a universal basic income (UBI) program that proposed providing each American with $1,000 per month. Like similar proposals in the past, the program garnered excited supporters and staunch detractors. And while COVID-19 reinvigorated the discussion around UBI, it’s unclear whether one will or should ever be enacted.

However, characteristics that make UBI attractive, particularly the direct support it provides, sans bureaucratic red tape, can be applied to other government programs. For example, ensuring America’s fundamental nutritional needs are met. The government could directly provide all citizens with food or, more simply, with nutrients. Introducing: Universal Basic Nutrient Income (UBNI).

Following the model of companies like Soylent and Huel, the government could aim to develop the healthiest, cheapest, most sustainable, and all-around best powdered meal replacement. The perfect UBNI Shakes would be available to all Americans for free (well, funded by taxes). UBNI could replace the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other government food programs. There could be a UBNI Shake for every bottle, and more time in everyone’s days.

Read More

Gavel and stethoscope.

How to Assess the Impact of Medical Ethics Education

By Leah Pierson

There has been too little evaluation of ethics courses in medical education in part because there is not consensus on what these courses should be trying to achieve. Recently, I argued that medical school ethics courses should help trainees to make more ethical decisions. I also reviewed evidence suggesting that we do not know whether these courses improve decision making in clinical practice. Here, I consider ways to assess the impact of ethics education on real-world decision making and the implications these assessments might have for ethics education.

Read More

Cozy scottish kitten sleeps under blanket on a bed at home. Top down view.

Public Health: Got Sleep?

By Jack Becker

There are certain public health commercials that generations will always remember. For some, it’s the NHTSA’s “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” commercials. For others, it may be a “Think. Don’t Smoke.” commercial featuring a young Robert McElhenney. Younger generations have certainly seen “The Real Cost” campaigns, which have recently tackled vaping. And a personal favorite, Nickelodeon’s “Hidden Sugar” commercial will forever be iconic.

To the visionaries that permanently cemented the fact that “glucose, sucrose, dextrose, and maltose” are “all words that rhyme with gross” in minds across the country, here’s a new challenge: sleep deprivation.

Read More

Basketball street player making a rear slam dunk.

Another Kind of Performance-Enhancing Drug in Sports: Substances That Improve Creativity

By Jack Becker

Discussions about performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) are normally all about physical abilities. They revolve around PEDs that can alter strength, speed, stamina, recovery, and even stability. But if every sport were just a competition of physical traits, they’d be pretty boring.

Sports combine physical competition with competition of strategy, technique, and other non-physical components (to varying degrees). While players develop some of these individually, sports also involve coaches and trainers that develop new strategies and techniques without stepping onto the field. Innovations in these non-physical components can certainly enhance a player or team’s performance. So how do they fit into the PED discussion?

Read More

Group of athletic adult men and women performing sit up exercises to strengthen their core abdominal muscles at fitness training.

Exercise Equipment Advertisements and Consumer Distrust

By Jack Becker

Are you ready to learn about “the most innovative piece of exercise equipment ever”? To take advantage of “the momentum of gravity to target your entire midsection”? Doesn’t everybody want to “lose those love handles nobody loves”? To finally “have the flat washboard abs and the sexy v-shape [they’ve] always wanted”? Within “just weeks, not months,” anybody can “firm and flatten their stomach.” And “best of all, it’s fun and easy and takes just three minutes a day.”

Despite its endorsement from an expert fitness celebrity and customer testimonials, you might be skeptical of the Ab Circle Pro’s claims. After all, can you really cut out five minutes from the iconic 8-Minute Abs routine?

Massive and misleading promises are an unfortunate reality for many exercise equipment advertisements. Illegitimate advertising claims can harm consumers and impact overall consumer trust, which creates an uphill battle for honest companies. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) already regulates exercise equipment, but supplementing its efforts with more consumer education and industry self-regulation could be a winning combination to restore trust in the fitness industry.

Read More