“Isn’t Incarceration Better than Death?”

Katherine L. Record, JD, MPH, MA

Shortly after criticizing Massachusetts for incarcerating innocent individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) when drug rehab facilities are full, I received an email from a woman who lost her son to a heroin overdose just four months ago.

“Is preventing an overdose by detaining the SUD sufferer not a better alternative than leaving them to languish?” she asked.

She had found her 24 year-old son cold and blue, just hours after kissing him goodnight. He had been evicted from his sober living home for testing positive for drugs, but his mother did not know he had relapsed when he arrived at her front door. He was, in hindsight, a clear danger to himself – so why did his step-down house let him wander away? Why didn’t anyone call the authorities? Is jail not better than death?

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Introducing New Blogger Bob Bohrer

bohrerBob Bohrer is a Professor of Law at California Western School of Law.  Having joined the faculty in 1982, Bob was one of the first full-time law teachers in the United States to concentrate on the emerging area of biotechnology law. His research is focused on the way in which drug development is influenced by a number of areas of law, including FDA approval, patent law, insurance and reimbursement, and the First Amendment commercial speech doctrine.

Bob is Chair Elect of the Biolaw Section of the Association of American Law Schools.  Read More

Sunstein Keynote at Petrie-Flom Annual Conference featured in Harvard Law Today

sunstein-atlanticHarvard Law Today has posted a feature on Cass Sunstein’s keynote address at the 2014 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference, “Behavioral Economics, Law, and Health Policy.” Sunstein, who is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School and the co-author of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, addressed the opening day of the conference on May 2, 2014, on the subject of “Choosing Not to Choose.”

Full video of the conference will be available soon via the Petrie-Flom Center’s website. In the meantime, you can read about and view Sunstein’s keynote address here.

Journal of Law & Biosciences publishes HLS student work

JLB coverThe Journal of Law and the Biosciences, the new open-access journal launched this year by the Petrie-Flom Center and Harvard Law School in partnership with Duke University and Stanford University, has published several articles in recent weeks by Harvard Law School students:

Check out these articles, and learn more about the Journal of Law and the Biosciences!

I. Glenn Cohen Discusses Ethics of Medical Personnel Involvement in Executions

cohen_talking_peoplePetrie-Flom Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show last night to discuss his recent opinion piece in JAMA, coauthored with Robert D. Truog and Mark A. Rockoff (both of Harvard Medical School), on “Physicians, Medical Ethics, and Execution by Lethal Injection.” In the piece, Cohen et al. argue that medical specialty boards should withdraw board certification from members who participate in executions.

From the interview:

…we think it [execution] is totally incompatible with the role of the doctor. A doctor is about healing. A doctor is about soothing pain. A doctor is not meant to be conscripted by the state to make what is the involuntary killing of another person look as though it’s a medical procedure, like getting your teeth pulled or putting your dog to sleep. It’s kabuki theater, Rachel, and we think doctors should stand up. Whatever your position is on capital punishment, it’s wrong to make this procedure look like medicine. That’s not what it is. […]

Watch the full interview.

Petrie-Flom Center Hiring Interns to start August 2014

PFC_Logo_300x300The Petrie-Flom Center PFC_Logo_300x300for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School

Student Internship Program

 

The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School is seeking student interns for the fall 2014 semester.   Availability to start by August 4, 2014 is preferred, but later start dates will be considered on an individual basis; please indicate your availability in your application materials. We may consider extension through Spring 2015 if there is mutual interest.

Who is eligible?

Harvard undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in the Center’s work are eligible to apply. More information about the Center is available at our website. The internship is open to students in all disciplines, but we particularly welcome applications from students studying health policy, philosophy, bioethics, law, medicine, business economics, and the sciences.  We are also interested in receiving applications from students interested in technology and communications.

What will the internship entail?
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Direct-to-Patient Laboratory Test Reporting

MJYPetrie-Flom Student Fellow Michael Young has coauthored a new piece with Ethan Scheinberg (Harvard Law School) and Harold Bursztajn (Harvard Medical School) now available through JAMA, “Direct-to-Patient Laboratory Test Reporting: Balancing Access With Effective Clinical Communication” The article discusses ethical and clinical implications of a 2014 HHS ruling allowing patients direct access to completed medical laboratory reports.

From the article:

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A Drug Epidemic’s Silver Lining

By Katherine L. Record

Can there be a silver lining to a drug epidemic that is so extreme it is deemed a public health emergency? As prescription opioid (painkiller) addictions drive individuals to heroin, there just might be.

Heroin use has surged recently – seizures of supply increased by nearly 70% over the last few years in New York (the epicenter for imports into the United States). In Boston, overdoses increased by nearly 80% between 2010 and 2012. This has followed a rising trend in prescription opioid addictions – 4 out of 5 users are addicted to prescription painkillers when they first try heroin. Turning to the street opioid is often a move of desperation; prescription opioids are now harder to abuse, more expensive, and harder to obtain than heroin. In other words, heroin provides a cheaper, easier to score, and stronger high.

This surge in use is changing the face of heroin; the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s director recently described the drug as a former “inner city problem” that has become classless, affecting “all populations and all ages.” To be blunt, white people – many with high paying jobs and fancy apartments – are now doing 8 to 10 bags a day.

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SCOTUS Embraces Regulatory Synergy in POM Wonderful

By Diana R.H. Winters

While today’s unanimous (sans Justice Breyer, who recused himself) decision by the Supreme Court in POM Wonderful LLC v. Coca-Cola Co. was certainly not a surprise, especially after the clear tenor of the oral argument, the case may have some implications for FDA law going forward. In this case, POM Wonderful sued Coca-Cola under the Lanham Act, alleging that the label on Coca-Cola’s pomegranate blueberry juice was false and misleading, and that this deception caused it to lose sales. Coca-Cola argued that because its label complied with the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, POM’s Lanham Act claim should be precluded. The district court and the Ninth Circuit agreed. Read More