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The Petrie-Flom Center staff often posts updates, announcements, and guests posts on behalf of others.
Stethoscope wound around a gavel

The Promises and Perils of Medical Legal Partnerships

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

This piece was part of a symposium featuring commentary from participants in the Center for Health Policy and Law’s annual conference, Promises and Perils of Emerging Health Innovations, held on April 11-12, 2019 at Northeastern University School of Law. The symposium was originally posted through the Northeastern University Law Review Online Forum.

Promises and Perils of Emerging Health Innovations Blog Symposium

We are pleased to present this symposium featuring commentary from participants in the Center for Health Policy and Law’s annual conference, Promises and Perils of Emerging Health Innovations, held on April 11-12, 2019 at Northeastern University School of Law. As a note, additional detailed analyses of issues discussed during the conference will be published in the 2021 Winter Issue of the Northeastern University Law Review. @NUSLHealth @nulawreview

Throughout the two-day conference, speakers and attendees discussed how innovations, including artificial intelligence, robotics, mobile technology, gene therapies, pharmaceuticals, big data analytics, tele- and virtual health care delivery, and new models of delivery, such as accountable care organizations (ACOs), retail clinics, and medical-legal partnerships (MLPs), have entered and changed the healthcare market. More dramatic innovations and market disruptions are likely in the years to come. These new technologies and market disruptions offer immense promise to advance health care quality and efficiency, as well as improve provider and patient engagement. Success will depend, however, on careful consideration of potential perils and well-planned interventions to ensure new methods ultimately further, rather than diminish, the health of patients, especially those who are the most vulnerable.

Jessica Mantel and Leah Fowler start off the Promises and Perils of Emerging Health Innovations blog symposium with a discussion about the ways in which medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) have improved quality and efficiency of care, particularly because of their innovative and interdisciplinary approach to addressing social and structural determinants of health. Mantel and Fowler, drawing on interviews with MLP professionals, highlight some of the successes existing MLPs have achieved, and share lessons learned and potential challenges for current and developing MLPs to consider.

The Promises and Perils of Medical Legal Partnerships

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Female gynecologist talking to female patient while holding a tablet

How to understand the Mexican Supreme Court Decision Regarding Abortion Based on Health Risks

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Friday, October 4, the Petrie-Flom Center will host “Abortion Battles in Mexico and Beyond: The Role of Law and the Courts,” from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. 

By Adriana Ortega Ortiz

In Mexico, abortion is a state-law matter. It is considered a crime in most of the Mexican states except for Mexico City and Oaxaca where abortion is permitted within the first trimester of the pregnancy.

In the rest of the states abortion is allowed under limited legal indications: rape, health risks, danger of death, fetal impairment, and distressing economic situations. The legal indications are similar but not identical in the Mexican territory. The only legal indication for abortion that applies in every state is rape.

In this context, what makes the recent abortion ruling of the Mexican Supreme Court important?

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Flag of Malawi blowing in the wind in front of a clear blue sky

A 15-year review of the PEPFAR support to Malawi: How Has it Succeeded?

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Monday, October 7, the Petrie-Flom Center is co-sponsoring “15+ Years of PEPFAR: How U.S. Action on HIV/AIDS Has Changed Global Health,” from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. This event is cosponsored by the Harvard Global Health Institute, the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research, the Center for Health Law Policy and Innovation at Harvard Law School, and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

By Maureen Luba

Malawi was listed as one of the six locations that have made remarkable progress towards ending the AIDS epidemic in a recent report produced by AmfAR, AVAC, and Friends of the Global Fight. Being one of the poorest countries on the list, Malawi has proven that ending the epidemic is possible anywhere.

But one would want to know what has contributed to this success!

Well, there are many factors. And funding from donors is one of them. The HIV/AIDS response in Malawi is largely funded by the Global Fund and PEPFAR. But for the sake of this blog I will focus on PEPFAR, a U.S. government program launched in 2003 by then President George W. Bush. In 15 years of support, PEPFAR has led the world in funding the global HIV response.

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Statue of Justitia, the Roman goddess of Justice, placed in front of a large open book on which a gavel has been placed.

Amparo en Revisión 1388/2015 and the “Rights” Discourse in Mexico

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Friday, October 4, the Petrie-Flom Center will host “Abortion Battles in Mexico and Beyond: The Role of Law and the Courts,” from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. 

By Patricia del Arenal Urueta

Since June of 2011, the Mexican Constitution includes a variety of clauses that would undoubtedly classify as “progressive.” Article 1 incorporates all human rights protected by international treaties into the Constitution itself; and this means that every authority (including, of course, judges) should interpret the law in order to reach the most comprehensive protection of human rights. It is a beautiful and promising text. It follows a global tendency premised on the notion that international human rights are the standard by which it is possible to scrutinize any act (or decision) claiming political and legal authority over individuals.

However, given the alarming data showing an important increase in human rights violations over the past few years in Mexico, there are good reasons to feel uneasy about the efficacy of such an ambitious amendment. There is a striking disparity between its idealistic pretensions and the appalling reality. This phenomenon has prompted questions harder to address than those concerns typically attributed to a fragile Rule of Law. In fact, some scholars and other institutions have wondered whether such constitutional discourse serves as a sham. The idea behind this argument is that a text so grand can mostly serve to mask the government’s intention (deliberate or not) to actually do the opposite; this is, to advance policy uncommitted ─or even contrary─ to human rights, and to distract the international community from facts that it would probably disapprove.

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Illustration of a red AIDS awareness ribbon. The right end of the ribbon is the Nigerian flag.

PEPFAR and Health Systems Transformation in Nigeria

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff 1 Comment

Monday, October 7, the Petrie-Flom Center is co-sponsoring “15+ Years of PEPFAR: How U.S. Action on HIV/AIDS Has Changed Global Health,” from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. This event is cosponsored by the Harvard Global Health Institute, the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research, the Center for Health Law Policy and Innovation at Harvard Law School, and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

By Prosper Okonkwo

HIV diagnosis in Sub Saharan Africa in the nineties and early 2000s was literally a death sentence. This was either due to one or a combination of ignorance, denial, and weak health systems.

A few focusing events and the return to democratic rule in 1999, acted as fillip, jump-starting the national response, albeit modestly. In 2001, 10,000 adults and 5,000 children were placed on antiretrovirals (ARVs) at the cost of $7 a month. This was at a time when sourcing these drugs privately cost about $350 monthly in a country with a GDP per capita of less than $750, less than 5% health insurance coverage, and with about 80% of health expenditure paid out of pocket.

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View of the outside of the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice

The Fundamental Right to Health and Judicial Review in México

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Friday, October 4, the Petrie-Flom Center will host “Abortion Battles in Mexico and Beyond: The Role of Law and the Courts,” from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. 

By David García Sarubbi

The Mexican constitution is one that contains not only a list of civil rights, but also a declaration of social rights, and both are considered rules of decisions, perfectly justiciable under any court of law. This is important because this year the Mexican Supreme Court ruled in favor of a woman who had been denied an abortion alleged to be necessary to preserve her health in a public hospital. The Court sided with this claim after concluding abortion is covered by Constitution as interpreted by the Court.

So being the ground of such a ruling, it seems important to take into consideration some things about the doctrine of justiciability of the right to health in Mexico. In order to protect it, there are different systems funded with public money to provide services to the community. Nonetheless, the most important systems of health care are those funded with additional contributions from workers, which account for other rights also provided by these institutions, such as pensions for retirees as well as unemployment, accident, or life insurance.

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Photograph of a green cow statue in a field

Exploring the Future of Meat: Academy of Food Law & Policy 2nd Annual Conference at Georgia State University, Dec. 10, 2019

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By Nicole Negowetti

Sustainably feeding a growing population with healthy diets is a pressing global challenge. The role of meat in such diets is a deeply contentious issue that has public health, animal welfare, food systems, farming, and environmental experts and advocates weighing in on the issue. As we learn more about the impacts of meat production and consumption on human and environmental health and animal welfare, meat consumption is changing. In North America, eaters are heeding recommendations to reduce, replace, or eliminate meat in their diets; however, global meat production and consumption continues to rise.

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Illustration of a pill with a sensor embedded

Ethical and legal issues of ingestible electronic sensors

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This post originally appeared in Device and Materials Engineering. You can read it here.

By Sara Gerke & I. Glenn Cohen

In our new paper, we discuss the ethical challenges of ingestible electronics sensors (IESs; also called “smart pills”) and examine the legal regulation of such sensors in the United States and Europe.

IESs are increasingly being developed for improving health outcomes. One such use could facilitate monitoring and promoting medication adherence. Once swallowed, an IES connects with a wearable sensor that can detect and record valuable data, including behavioral and physiological metrics or the time of drug intake. The wearable sensor subsequently sends the collected data to a computing device (e.g., a smartphone) that processes and displays the information. There is also the option to link the display function with a cloud database for data sharing with the patient’s doctor or family.

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Photo of a stethoscope, gavel, and book

The End of Dramatic Legal Saga: French Patient Vincent Lambert has Died

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By Audrey Lebret

There are few cases as publicized in France as the story of Vincent Lambert, a patient in a vegetative state whose fate deeply divided his family. On June 28, 2019, the Cour de Cassation signed the last substantial decision of the Vincent Lambert case, after six years of proceedings. The patient died on July 11, 2019.

The facts

In 2008, Vincent Lambert was involved in a traffic accident that left him in a quadriplegic state and suffering from massive brain trauma. In 2011, a medical evaluation described his state as minimally conscious. Doctors tried to establish a code of communication to which he was never responsive. Nonetheless, doctors tracked some behaviors that they interpreted as an opposition to treatments and a refusal to live (Conseil d’Etat judgement, at 20). In 2013, his doctor initiated a procedure with the agreement of Mr. Lambert’s wife in order to interrupt the treatments. That initiated a lengthy court battle.

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Is Data Sharing Caring Enough About Patient Privacy? Part II: Potential Impact on US Data Sharing Regulations

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A recent US lawsuit highlights crucial challenges at the interface of data utility, patient privacy & data misuse

By Timo Minssen (CeBIL, UCPH), Sara Gerke & Carmel Shachar

Earlier, we discussed the new suit filed against Google, the University of Chicago (UC), and UChicago Medicine, focusing on the disclosure of patient data from UC to Google. This piece goes beyond the background to consider the potential impact of this lawsuit, in the U.S., as well as placing the lawsuit in the context of other trends in data privacy and security.

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