Conference Announcement and Call for Abstracts, 2014 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference

The Petrie-Flom Center has released the description and call for abstracts for its 2014 Annual Conference: “Behavioral Economics, Law, and Health Policy.” The conference will be held at Harvard Law School on May 2 and 3, 2014, and seeks to address the following questions:

  • Are there features unique to health and health care that prevent individuals, groups, and policymakers from making the best decisions?  What is a “best” decision, i.e., whose perspective should be paramount?
  • What types of barriers exist to rational decision making in the health care context, and what does rational decision making look like here?
  • Is exploitation of framing effects, default rules, nudges, and other elements of choice architecture appropriate when it comes to human health, or is this an area where pure autonomy should reign – or perhaps strong paternalism is needed? Is health policy special?
  • What should policymakers do when there is conflict between outcomes that might be good for individuals but not society more generally, and vice versa?  Where should the nudges push?
  • Which areas of health law, bioethics, and biotechnology policy are most amenable or resistant to manipulation of choice architecture?  When nudges are not plausible, what is the best way to overcome bounded rationality?
  • When might behavioral economics lead to the wrong results for health law, bioethics, and biotechnology policy?
  • How can manipulations of choice architecture be best evaluated empirically, and what ethical concerns might such research raise?
  • What are the most interesting or compelling health law, bioethics, and biotechnology policy nudges we should be thinking about today in the realms of obesity, organ donation, end-of-life care, biospecimen ownership and research, human subjects research, HIV testing, vaccination, health insurance, and other areas?

Please note that this list is not meant to be at all exhaustive; we hope to receive papers related to the conference’s general theme but not specifically listed here.

Abstracts are due by December 2, 2013.

For a full conference description, including the call for abstracts and registration information, please visit our website.

Dov Fox on the question of “designer babies”

Bill of Health blogger Dov Fox was quoted in the recent article “Genetic-testing patent raises concerns about ‘designer babies’.”

“‘Some people might say this is in some respects similar to dating websites to the extent you look for traits in somebody you want to have children with,’ said Dov Fox, a law professor at the University of San Diego. But the important question, he said, is whether the accuracy from the genetic testing, albeit imperfect, makes 23andMe’s service more troubling.”

View the full article here.

Educating ELSI

By Matthew L Baum

“Examining the intersection of law and health care, biotech & bioethics”

– the subtitle of the Bill of Health blog.

I approach this intersection like many of my fellow students: outfitted with the tools and spectacles of a specific discipline. Whether that is health law, policy, medicine, engineering, philosophy, genetics, or cognitive science, none of us have had the ideal education that would enable not only an approach, but an inhabitation of this intersection.

What would that ideal education be? To consider the ideal education for a citizen, Rousseau conducts an elaborate thought experiment giving that education to a fictional young boy named Emile (hence the title of the work: Emile, or On Education). Let us begin a similar experiment to consider the ideal education for someone to inhabit the intersection of law and health care, biotech & bioethics.

Let’s call our fictional young person, ELSI.

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2014 Health Law Student Scholarships for Healthcare Compliance Certification Program at Seton Hall

Healthcare Compliance Certification Program 

2014 Health Law Student Scholarships

Seton Hall University School of Law 

Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law & Policy 

The Healthcare Compliance Certification Program is a multi-day educational program that addresses the myriad of legal and compliance issues faced by the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.

Purpose: This award recognizes promising health law students with an aptitude for and commitment to a career in health law with a focus on the legal and compliance issues within the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical technology industries.

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Video Now Available: “Gene Patenting, the Supreme Court’s Myriad Decision, and the Future of Biotechnology”

In case you missed it live on Monday evening, video from the Petrie-Flom Center’s event “Gene Patenting, the Supreme Court’s Myriad Decision, and the Future of Biotechnology” (co-sponsored by the Broad Institute) is now available here.

09/27/13 UPDATE: Our intern Fatima Mirza also wrote up this summary:

At this event, a distinguished panel of law and biotechnology experts convened to discuss the landmark Supreme Court Myriad decision and its implications on the future of scientific innovation and development.

The discourse began with an introduction of the high-profile case that extended beyond simply the scientific, political, or legal spheres.

“A broad coalition of people came to file this case,” said Tania Simoncelli, former Science Advisor to the ACLU. “Everyone from clinical geneticists, genetic counselors, individual women who could not access testing, the American Medical Association, the American Association of Human Genetics, and the March of Dimes were involved.”

In order to provide context for the case, Glenn Cohen, Professor at Harvard Law School and Faculty Co-Director of the Petrie-Flom Center, offered a brief history of biotechnology and patent law.  He highlighted developments from as early as 1911 when adrenaline, a naturally occurring compound, could be patented and distributed commercially based on the principle of purification. Emphasizing paradigm shifts in a rapidly advancing society, Cohen further outlined the role of the Patent and Trademark Office. “At the heart of patent law is whether we will have a pro-innovation or anti-innovation effects,” said Cohen.

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