Category: Chloe Reichel

Herndon, USA - April 27, 2020: Virginia Fairfax County building exterior sign entrance to Mom's Organic Market store with request to wear face mask due to covid-19 pandemic.

Are Employers That Ditch Mask Mandates Liable for COVID-19 Infections at Work?

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By Chloe Reichel

Last week, in response to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance indicating that vaccinated individuals need not wear face coverings indoors, a number of states and businesses swiftly did away with indoor mask mandates.

Widespread criticism followed, focusing on the dangerous policy vacuum that now exists. The CDC has suggested unvaccinated individuals follow an honor system and continue masking — but such an honor system is difficult, if not impossible, to enforce.

In the absence of indoor mask policies, individuals face increased risk of exposure to the virus. And some groups are particularly at risk of contracting the virus now, including immunocompromised individuals, for whom vaccines may not confer protection, and children under the age of 12, for whom a vaccine has not yet been authorized.

To better understand the new guidance and its implications for workers who are no longer protected by mask mandates, I spoke with Sharona Hoffman, an expert in health and employment law. Hoffman is the Edgar A. Hahn Professor of Law, a professor of bioethics, and Co-Director of Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. In our interview, Hoffman explained whether an employer may be held liable if an employee contracts COVID-19 after an occupational exposure, and highlighted other key issues to anticipate regarding COVID-19 and the workplace.

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Fake Vaccine Cards and the Challenges of Decentralized Health Data

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By Carmel Shachar and Chloe Reichel

Soon the U.S. will have vaccinated all adults who are not vaccine hesitant. Our next key challenges will be reopening workplaces, restaurants, schools, and other public areas, as well as encouraging vaccine uptake among those who are hesitant or resistant to the vaccine.

Vaccine passports or certifications could be a tool used to address both of those challenges.

But our approach to health care data management may undermine this next stage of the pandemic response.

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Los Angeles, California / USA - May 1, 2020: People in front of Los Angeles’ City Hall protest the state’s COVID-19 stay at home orders in a “Fully Open California” protest.

5 Questions About COVID-19 and Religious Exemptions

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By Chloe Reichel

On February 26th, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a shadow docket decision that could foretell sweeping limitations for public health measures, both within and outside the COVID-19 pandemic context.

The Court’s ruling in the case, Gateway City Church v. Newsom, blocked a county-level ban on church services, despite the fact that the ban applied across the board to all indoor gatherings. This religious exceptionalism is emerging as a key trend in recent Supreme Court decisions, particularly those related to COVID-19 restrictions.

To better understand what these rulings might mean for public health, free exercise of religion, the future of the COVID-19 pandemic, and potential vaccine mandates, I spoke with Professor Elizabeth Sepper, an expert in religious liberty, health law, and equality at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

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Vial and syringe.

4 Things to Know About Intellectual Property, Patent Pledges, and COVID-19 Vaccines

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By Chloe Reichel

High-profile commentators have argued recently that vaccine scarcity needn’t exist. If vaccine manufacturers simply shared their patents with other pharmaceutical companies, supply would quickly ramp up. 

Others have pointed out that numerous bottlenecks exist in the manufacturing process, from the glass vials that hold the vaccine, to the lipids that encase the vaccine’s active ingredient, mRNA.

And even if these bottlenecks didn’t exist, the intellectual property argument may be a straw man.    

In fact, this past October, Moderna made a gesture toward opening access to its intellectual property, by pledging that it would not enforce its patents against “those making vaccines intended to combat the pandemic.” That month, Jorge L. Contreras, a Presidential Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of Utah, covered the patent pledge and its potential implications for Bill of Health.

We checked in with Contreras to ask about the implications of Moderna’s patent pledge now that its vaccine has been proven safe and effective. Here are the highlights from the conversation:

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2020 with second zero filled in with virion.

Bill of Health’s Top 10 Posts of 2020

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By Chloe Reichel

In 2020, topics relating to bioethics, health law policy, and biotechnology took center stage in the collective national and global consciousness.

The COVID-19 pandemic has, unfortunately, posed countless urgent bioethical and health law policy questions. The police killing of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked wider awareness of the systemic racial injustice in the U.S., which permeates all aspects of society and has profound detrimental effects on health.

Our contributors have grappled with these issues on the pages of this blog. 

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White jigsaw puzzle as a human brain on blue. Concept for Alzheimer's disease.

Detecting Dementia

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Cross-posted, with slight modification, from Harvard Law Today, where it originally appeared on November 21, 2020. 

By Chloe Reichel

Experts gathered last month to discuss the ethical, social, and legal implications of technological advancements that facilitate the early detection of dementia.

“Detecting Dementia: Technology, Access, and the Law,” was hosted on Nov. 16 as part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

The event, organized by Francis X. Shen ’06 Ph.D. ’08, the Petrie-Flom Center’s senior fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience and executive director of the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital, was one of a series hosted by the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience on aging brains.

Early detection of dementia is a hopeful prospect for the treatment of patients, both because it may facilitate early medical intervention, as well as more robust advance care planning.

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Adult and child holding kidney shaped paper on textured blue background.

Nudging Organ Donation in the United States

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Cross-posted from Harvard Law Today, where it originally appeared on November 13, 2020. 

By Chloe Reichel

Nationally and globally, demand for organ transplants outstrips supply. In the United States last year, 19,267 donors made a record-setting 39,718 transplants possible, but nearly 109,000 Americans still remain on the organ transplant waiting list.

Cass Sunstein ’78, Robert Walmsley University Professor and former Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration, believes “Nudge theory” might help bridge this gap between supply and demand.

Sunstein joined scholars and leaders in transplant services on Friday, Nov. 6 to discuss strategies to boost rates of organ donation at “Nudging Organ Donation: Tools to Encourage Organ Availability,” an event hosted by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

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Money.

Conflicts of Interest in the Hospital Sector: A Q&A with Rina K. Spence

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By Chloe Reichel

Brigham and Women’s Hospital recently made headlines when the Boston Globe reported that the hospital’s president, Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, held a seat on the board of Moderna, a Cambridge biotech company that is working to develop an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. The hospital has a major role in a national study of the vaccine.

The hospital maintained that safeguards were put in place to protect against conflicts of interest during the collaboration. Nevertheless, amid public outcry, Nabel stepped down from the board.

But this story is just one high-profile case of what is commonplace in the hospital sector. A 2014 research letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 40 percent of pharmaceutical company boards of directors had at least one member who also held, at the same time, a leadership role at an academic medical center.

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Busy Nurse's Station In Modern Hospital

Hospital Administration and the COVID-19 Pandemic (Part II)

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By Chloe Reichel

This post is the second in a series of question and answer pieces with Rina Spence about hospital administration and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought numerous challenges to hospitals and hospital administrators: equipment shortages for both patients and health care workers; steep declines in revenue; and attendant staffing concerns.

Rina K. Spence served as the president and CEO of Emerson Hospital in Concord, MA from 1984 through 1994. Currently, Spence is an advisor to the Precision Medicine, Artificial Intelligence, and the Law Project at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

Spence spoke with the Petrie-Flom Center to offer her perspective on the challenges hospitals are facing amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The conversation touched on: the basics of hospital administration; the business-like model by which many hospitals are run; unpopular decisions hospitals are making during the pandemic, like furloughing some staff and slashing retirement benefits; and steps forward in addressing the COVID-19 crisis at the hospital-level.

We’ve lightly edited and condensed the interview, which is running as a series of question and answer pieces. This second installment provides an overview of the administrative decisions hospitals are making during the COVID-19 pandemic, including cutting benefits for employees and furloughing staff.

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