hospital equipment

Scarcity Is Not an Excuse to Discriminate: Age and Disability in Health Care Rationing

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Silvia Serrano Guzmán

On July 4, 2023 the Constitutional Court of Colombia handed down a landmark decision on one of the most difficult dilemmas faced during the COVID-19 pandemic: the rationing of intensive care in situations of scarcity. Although the need for prioritization was a reality almost globally, many countries had no such regulation in place, which frequently led to the adoption of fragmented and discriminatory triage protocols.

The Colombian case reinforces that human rights and public health are not mutually exclusive. Importantly, this is reflected in the Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights & Public Health Emergencies (2023). Though the Principles did not exist during the litigation of the case, they will be of use in similar instances going forward, both for States working to develop human rights-compliant public health measures, as well as for courts reviewing such measures.

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3D illustration of a Renaissance marble statue of Zeus, king of the gods, who was also the god of the sky and thunder. Zeus in Greek mythology is known as Jupiter in Roman mythology.

Data Pseudonymization and POPIA

Donrich Thaldar Leave a comment

By Donrich Thaldar

Just as Zeus, the King of the Gods in Greek mythology, assumed various forms to conceal his true identity, so does modern data often undergo transformations to mask its origins. Zeus could become a swan, a bull, or even golden rain to achieve his purposes — all while maintaining his essence. Similarly, pseudonymization techniques aim to alter data enough to protect individual privacy without losing the core information necessary for research or analysis. This entails replacing data subjects’ identifying information in a dataset with unique codes, while keeping another dataset that links these data subjects’ identifying information with their allocated codes. Therefore, just as Zeus’ transformations were sometimes seen through by keen eyes, pseudonymized data can be re-identified by those having access to the linking dataset.

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Person hands keys into another person's outstretched hand.

We May Not ‘Own’ Our Bodies. Should We?

Adithi Iyer Leave a comment

By Adithi Iyer

As the provision of human tissue leaves the research realm and becomes a bona fide consumer transaction, our legal responses to these developments will be most effective when we know what we want to protect, and how.

Perhaps the most famous discussion around tissue “donation” comes from the story of Henrietta Lacks and her family. Ms. Lacks is the namesake and unknowing donor of HeLa cells, and subject of the Rebecca Skloot bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In a settlement obtained just this past summer with manufacturing giant ThermoFisher, the Lacks estate (Ms. Lacks herself died of an aggressive cervical cancer in 1951) obtained a confidential payment for the unconsented taking of her cells for research. The settled case was built on an unjust enrichment claim, and while this wasn’t decided on the merits, it raises the question of whether a provision of tissue is a transfer of value. If so, what are our ownership stakes in that value? Read More

Person filling syringe from vial.

Public Health Emergencies and Human Rights Principles: A Solidarity Approach

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Anne Kjersti Befring and Cecilia Marcela Bailliet

  1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a grave threat to humanity and revealed the need for a new approach to improve transnational cooperation within the global health system and new perspectives on solidarity addressing the cross-border spread of infection and distribution of vaccines.

The Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies (“the Principles”), developed by the Global Health Law Consortium and the International Commission of Jurists, set forth a human rights-based solidarity approach that can provide a basis for implementing the obligations of States and responsibilities of Non-State actors to achieve the goal of limiting the harmful effects of serious health crises.

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Hundred dollar bills rolled up in a pill bottle

Ketamine Is the New Viagra

Vincent Joralemon Leave a comment

By Vincent Joralemon

Spravato, the first FDA-approved psychedelic therapy, just outsold Viagra. Johnson & Johnson’s ketamine-based formulation generated $183 million in Q3, surpassing Pfizer’s erectile dysfunction (ED) drug, which earned $110 million over the same period. Remarkably, a therapeutic made from ketamine, once dismissed as a “club drug” or “horse tranquilizer,” now sells more than one of the most notable 21st-century pharmaceuticals. 

Yet, these two drugs have more in common than meets the eye, and the path Spravato has taken looks strangely similar to that of Viagra. By looking at the journey traversed by Viagra over the past twenty years, we can predict where Spravato (and other psychedelic therapies) are headed.

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Group of Diverse Kids Playing in a Field Together.

Securing a Place for Children’s Rights in Public Health Emergencies

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Sheila Varadan, Ton Liefaard, and Jaap Doek

The Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies (Principles) make a significant contribution towards clarifying the scope of States’ legal obligations under international human rights law during public health emergencies. What is missing, however, is a specific and detailed discussion on the rights obligations and principles owed to children during public health emergencies. This leaves open the question of how States will guarantee respect for and protection of children’s rights in future public health emergencies, and what measures, if any, will be taken to ensure children are actively listened to and engaged with in the prevention of, preparedness for, and response to public health emergencies (PPRR).

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scales on blue background.

Judging in the Pandemic – A Malawian Perspective

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Zione Ntaba

Malawi is not a stranger to public health crises in the last number of years, having faced a severe HIV epidemic and several cholera outbreaks continuing into 2023. Nevertheless, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a major panic in the country’s legal system and judiciary. COVID-19 brought to fruition a major ethical dilemma in ensuring the justice system’s continued functioning, while also protecting the lives of all those involved, and simultaneously ensuring the promotion and protection of human rights.

The constitutional mandate of ensuring access to justice in Malawi, a country which already struggles with effective and efficient justice delivery at the best of times, required urgent resolution, especially noting the potential of human rights violations arising from State responses to COVID-19 worldwide. Interestingly, in addition to the general need to safeguard the justice system as a whole, the pandemic itself brought before the courts issues relating to public health and human rights.

The prevailing principle in Malawi, as it is internationally, is for the judicial system to ensure that there exists an equal balance between the protection and promotion of human rights and the fair and just administration of justice. The courts in Malawi were called upon to rise above the political bureaucracy, to ensure judicial impartiality when dealing with pandemic-related issues. This was crucial in a context in which political responses to the pandemic sometimes remained unquestioned or unchallenged. However, unless these principles — of human rights and fair administration of justice — were properly upheld by the courts, sadly they may have remained in the world of the metaphysical.

It is with this context in mind that I turn to reflecting on the Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies (“Principles”).

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An ordinary classroom in an African school.

Two Years On: The Reversal of Tanzania’s Education Policies for Adolescent Mothers

Joelle Boxer 2 Comments

By Joelle Boxer

In November 2021, Tanzania’s Ministry of Education reversed a policy preventing adolescent mothers from attending public schools. Two years on, research shows the movement for #ArudiShuleni (“Back to School”) requires continued support.

Prior to the policy change, an estimated 6,550–15,000 Tanzanian girls and adolescents were forced out of school each year due to pregnancy, while thousands more were subject to coercive pregnancy testing. The reversal has fundamental implications at the intersection of rights to sexual and reproductive health care and education.

This article will review the expulsion policy, efforts leading to its reversal, and the government’s recent re-entry guidelines, with a focus on the driving role of civil society.

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President Joe Biden at desk in Oval Office.

What’s on the Horizon for Health and Biotech with the AI Executive Order

Adithi Iyer Leave a comment

By Adithi Iyer

Last month, President Biden signed an Executive Order mobilizing an all-hands-on-deck approach to the cross-sector regulation of artificial intelligence (AI). One such sector (mentioned, from my search, 33 times) is health/care. This is perhaps unsurprising— the health sector touches almost every other aspect of American life, and of course continues to intersect heavily with technological developments. AI is particularly paradigm-shifting here: the technology already advances existing capabilities in analytics, diagnostics, and treatment development exponentially. This Executive Order is, therefore, as important a development for health care practitioners and researchers as it is for legal experts. Here are some intriguing takeaways:  Read More