Group of students wearing protective medical masks and talking, standing in lecture hall at the university.

Public Health Law’s Future Begins in the Classroom

By Taleed El-Sabawi

The use of emergency public health powers by state and local governments during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic led to intense public criticism followed by legislative attempts (include some successes) to strip state executives of this authority. This has led some to ask: is this the end of public health law? What does the future hold?

For public health law to survive, it needs a good defense. It needs passionate advocates. It needs a growing constituency that understands its utility and its importance in protecting the health of the population. But, let’s face it. I would wager a guess that the vast majority of law students, law professors, and law school administrators do not even know what public health law is.

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Ridgefield Park, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA Monday June 8th 2020 - Black Lives Matter Protest George Floyd - Systemic Racism Is Real Sign.

Obesity and Systemic Racism: A Teaching Guide for a New Paper

By Daniel Aaron

Introduction

Is obesity a manifestation of systemic racism? This past week, a paper I co-authored on this question was published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

In the paper, Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford and I present an argument that obesity’s disproportionate harms to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) are attributable to systemic racism. We provide a ten-point strategy for studying and solving the core issues.

For health law, public health, and medical academics interested in teaching the article, I have created this guide, which includes follow-up questions you might consider posing to students to stir further thought and discussion.

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Tenure-Track/Tenured Health Law Position at IU McKinney

The Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law invites applications for a tenure-track/tenured faculty position. We invite applications from entry-level and experienced scholars. The position primarily would involve teaching courses in the Health Law curricula and participation in the scholarly and student-centered activities organized by the law school’s Hall Center for Law and Health.

Applicants should indicate what Health Law courses they could offer and any additional courses they would be interested in teaching. Interested candidates should submit their application (cover letter, CV including three references, and writing sample) at https://indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/4442

All applications received by September 25, 2017, will receive full consideration.

We are committed to achieving excellence through intellectual diversity and strongly encourage applications from persons of color, women, persons with disabilities, the LGBT community, veterans, and members of other groups that are under-represented on university faculties. The law school is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution and offers domestic partner benefits.

John A. Robertson (1943 – 2017)

Renowned bioethics scholar, longtime University of Texas Law Professor, and frequent Bill of Health contributor John A. Robertson has recently passed away. We at the Petrie-Flom Center mourn his passing, and our Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen writes a few words:

I saw John roughly a month ago at the Baby Markets Roundtable at UT Austin. He was, as he always was and as he still seems to me in my mind’s eye, full of electric intellectual energy, warmth, and whimsy. Every comment that I heard him make for over a decade at conferences began: “That’s so interesting…” and then he would proceed to subtly add something to whomever he responded to that was at once flattering of the idea and also five times better than what was said by original speaker. Certainly that’s how it felt when I was the person to whom he was responding.

Much will be said in coming weeks about his work—not only the centrality of Children of Choice to almost everything that has been written since on reproductive technology, but also the breadth of his work and the way in which almost every new technology soon had a wonderful take by him in print (IVF and uterus transplants most recently).

I’ll limit myself to two reflections. First, the way in which he put the field I write in (law and bioethics or law and the biosciences, depending on who you ask) on to the law school map, and with a few others (Rebecca Dresser, Alta CharoHank Greely, etc), gave it legitimacy as a real and important area of focus within law schools.

Second, and more personally, John was just about the best mentor to young scholars I have ever encountered. I met him first while I was a fellow at an ASLME event and I was blown away by the warmth and generosity of someone I considered a giant in the field (my idol if I’m honest) to a little pischer like me. Over the years I saw him do the same for countless others and I tried to do my best to palely imitate.

I can’t believe he is gone. The world seems a little darker.

Webinar, 6/28: Procedural Aspects of Compulsory Licensing under TRIPS

Join us at yet another webinar with J. Wested at the University of Copenhagen. This time we will debate procedural issues in compulsory licensing with H. Grosse Ruse-Kahn (University of Cambridge) & M. Desai (Eli Lilly). Further information on our webinar series is available at here, here, and below:

Procedural Aspects of Compulsory Licensing under Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)

Wednesday 28. June 2017
4-6 p.m (CEST)
Sign-up & questions: Jakob.blak.wested@jur.ku.dk

This webinar on “TRIPS and the life sciences” will approach the question of compulsory licensing by looking at the technical and procedural requirements applied by courts when evaluating a petition for a compulsory license.  

The balancing of the instrumental application of patent rights as a stimulator of innovation and the public interest in having access to these innovations form a controversial trajectory of discourse, which is as old as patent law. Compulsory licenses are one of the means that have been applied throughout the history of patent law, to condition this complex intersection of interests. The TRIPS agreement is no exception and art 31 contains the provision for member states to grant CL. In 2013, the Indian authorities granted a compulsory license to NATCO Pharmaceuticals for Bayers patented pharmaceutical product Carboxy Substituted Diphenyl Ureas, useful for the treatment of liver and kidney cancer. This decision raised several issues regarding the procedures and requirements to be met in order to grant a compulsory license. Furthermore, in January 2017 an amendment to TRIPS agreement entered into force allowing compulsory licensors to export their generic pharmaceuticals to least developed countries, further recalibrating the intersection of the monopoly power of the patent and public interest. Read More

Academic Immersion

Editor’s Note: The Petrie-Flom Center is now accepting applications for Student Fellowships for the 2017-2018 academic year. See our website for more information about applying! 

Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine published a Perspectives article describing the “Immersion Day” it holds for its board members. On the Immersion Day, participants don scrubs and shadow front line employees across various parts of the hospital – this might include attending ICU rounds or observing a surgery. The day gives board members the opportunity to meet and engage with staff in a meaningful way as they go about their jobs, painting a vivid picture of the issues and concerns that arise on paper in the board room. In its third year, the program is a resounding success, garnering rave reviews from the trustees. In fact, the hospital has now created an Immersion Day for state policymakers.

Having worked as a clinician before moving into policy and research, this piece resonated deeply with me. I have found my clinical experience to be essential and formative for how I view policy questions. In addition, as I approach the end of my year as a student fellow, I realized that this piece and the concept of immersion describes my experience with the Petrie-Flom Center. Read More

Hiring Announcement: Loyola University Chicago Beazley Institute for Health Law

Loyola University Chicago School of Law is pleased to invite applications for a full-time tenure-track position, at the rank of Assistant/Associate Professor with expertise in health law, beginning in fall 2016. We seek a scholar-teacher whose substantive interests are in the areas of administrative law, healthcare regulation, corporate health law and/or food and drug/pharmaceutical law. The full job announcement can be found at www.careers.luc.edu.

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The ACA and the Practice of Health Law

By Louise Trubek, Barbara Zabawa, Paula Galowitz

Health law practice is undergoing radical restructuring in the wake of major changes in the health care system and the reorganization of the legal profession. The health care system is being transformed as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and other factors promote the integration of clinics and hospitals, put greater emphasis on patient-centeredness, create incentives for value-based care, mandate public reporting on costs and outcomes, and provide subsidized coverage.  These changes in the health care system come at a time when the legal profession is also undergoing significant transformations.  In the corporate law sector, we see a major shift in the role of corporate general counsel and corresponding changes in the practice of outside corporate firms: General Counsel positions (GCs) are becoming more powerful and corporate firms are shifting from overall representation of companies to specialist niches. At the same time there is increased concern about access to justice for under-represented individuals while new programs to address unmet legal needs are emerging. Health care lawyers are caught up in this dual transformation as the nature and the setting for their practices change and they are called on to play new roles and develop new skills.

Our study of Transformations In Health Law Practice concentrates on two types of practice: the corporate law sector that serves business and the “access to justice” sector that assists individuals. Read More

AHLA Health Law Curriculum Manual

By Kevin Outterson

The American Health Lawyers Association is the nation’s largest group of practicing health law attorneys, with awesome CLE programs.

For the past couple years, a group at AHLA has been evaluating how health law is taught at law schools, with a view to prepare students for the practice of health law. AHLA surveyed many health law practice group chairs and other leaders. With that data, a large group of AHLA members and some full time professors evaluated health law curricula nationwide. A guidance document is now out (html or pdf):

We found some significant gaps, however, between what law schools offer and what the profession hopes to see in new health lawyers. Members of the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA) want to see more substantive classes in fraud & abuse, business, tax, life sciences, and health care reimbursement. Desired skills include working in teams, processing practical transactional skills, and effectively analyzing client-focused problems.

Two take-away slides from the AHLA survey of health law practice leaders and hiring partners:

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