Berries, tomatoes, and green beans in small green containers at farmer's market.

Food is Medicine Approaches to Address Diet-Related Health Conditions

By Hannah Rahim

Food is Medicine interventions aim to prevent and treat diet-related chronic health conditions and reduce food insecurity by providing food to individuals and communities, in connection with the health care system. While Food is Medicine has been gaining prominence in recent years, it has also received some criticism. This article will explore the development of Food is Medicine and its limitations, and briefly offer recommendations for successful Food is Medicine initiatives.

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Culturing cells in tissue culture plates.

R&D Mini-Me? New Legal Questions for Organoids

By Adithi Iyer

I have written previously about the not-so-distant possibility and promise of regenerative medicine, an area concerned with therapies that encourage the body to repair or heal itself. Cell-mediated and tissue-based technologies hold promise in inducing self-repair from within the body, and they’re making their way to market in traditional medicine. Much has been made of recently discussed CAR-T cell therapies for cancer, which have been around since 2017, and in-human sickle cell treatment Casgevy. Such applications of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering are wide-spanning and range across the bench-to-bedside pathway.

One application of regenerative medicine gaining some ground in the R&D space is the organoid. Organoids are lab-grown masses of cells and tissue that assemble to form miniature organs or organ systems in vitro. They come, too, in different forms and types, and while some organoid applications are heavily modified for specific functions, many are meant to recreate and model the naturally occurring organ systems we would find in our own bodies.

Organoids may sound especially futuristic, but are currently used regularly in labs for different research and therapeutic applications. A functional “organ” model not attached to a human body could offer the opportunity to model diseases and test treatments in real time without the need for an animal model (like the mice used today), especially in preclinical and early clinical trials for new drugs. Organoids generate information and data, and a single organoid model can even be hooked up to a “system” with other organoids to model systems and interrelated processes at once. The production of these models occurs in-lab, often involving stem cells that can divide and organize into tissues and organs on their own.

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People running on treadmills in a gym.

WHOOP and the IRS: How Tax Avoidance Helps Health

By Bobby Stroup

On December 19, WHOOP announced their flagship product (bearing the same name as the company) is now eligible for FSA and HSA spending. This news means customers might use tax deductions to purchase the “wearable” wellness device. Effectively, courtesy of Uncle Sam, Americans can now save money on trying to be like Michael Phelps and Colleen Quigley.

More than merely a discount on a fitness band, this announcement highlights larger issues within federal policymaking. The article here explores how the complexities of the tax code are intertwined with American health care.

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Gavel and stethoscope.

Eight Opportunities to Use the Law to Address Social Determinants of Health

By Jon Larsen and Sterling Johnson

Addressing the opioid crisis cannot stop at providing better access to treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), expanding and enhancing harm reduction efforts, and reimagining the role of law enforcement, as explored previously in this blog series. The response must go further to make treatment and harm reduction more effective, by acknowledging the opioid epidemic as a reflection of the conditions of the whole society, identifying those conditions, and addressing them head-on. A whole-person response to OUD and other substance use disorders needs a well-coordinated whole-of-government response to address myriad societal issues that are critical to effective drug treatment, including, but not limited to, housing, education, economic development, and tax policy.   

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. Group of pregnant women and women with children. Vector illustration

#MaternalHealthAwarenessDay: Three Policies to Push

By Joelle Boxer

Today is Maternal Health Awareness Day, focused on the theme “Access in Crisis.”

“Crisis” is the right word, yet still an understatement. In the U.S., for every 100,000 live births in 2021, nearly 33 pregnant people lost their lives. In Norway, that number was 2. Black and Native American women in the U.S. are particularly at risk, with death rates 2-3 times higher than those of white women, due to structural racism.

What can the law do to prevent these deaths? Medicaid pays for more than 40% of births in the U.S., covering 64% of Black mothers and 66% of Native American mothers. Examining efforts at the federal and state level, I highlight three options, leveraging Medicaid as a policy lever.

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scales on blue background.

Conclusion to the Symposium: From Principles to Practice: Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies

By Timothy Fish Hodgson, Roojin Habibi, and Alicia Ely Yamin

In developing the digital symposium, From Principles to Practice: Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies (which ran from October – December 2023), as editors we endeavored to get scholars, human rights advocates, judges, and policy makers to engage critically with the expert Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies (the PHE Principles), published by the International Commission of Jurists and the Global Health Law Consortium in May 2023. In doing so, we encouraged contributors to comment on the Principles’ potential usefulness as guidance in addressing real emergency situations, as well as any possible gaps and weaknesses.

While summarizing the entire content of the 13 blogs comprising this symposium in any depth is not possible here, this concluding post will attempt to synthesize some of the major inputs from the contributions. We also provide some of our own observations, as participants in the drafting of the Principles, with the aim of pushing the discussion prompted by the posts forward.

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Rows of gold post office boxes with one open mail box.

Plan to See ‘Plan C’ This Year

By Joelle Boxer

Tracy Droz Tragos’ new documentary, “Plan C,” follows the work of a grassroots organization dedicated to improving access to the abortion pill by mail in the U.S., while navigating an increasingly restrictive legal landscape.

There is no better time to hear the perspectives of these patients, providers, and activists. Just last month, the U.S. Supreme Court took on a case to determine the legal status of the pill, also called mifepristone. With a decision expected in June 2024, Tragos’ film shows us what’s at stake.

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Disposable syringe isolated on black background.

Six Opportunities to Use the Law to Support Harm Reduction

By Jon Larsen and Sterling Johnson

Harm reduction in the context of the opioid crisis is focused on preventing overdose and infectious disease transmission by working with people who use drugs without moral judgment. Far too often, the public health imperative of harm reduction is blocked by federal policy, state laws, and other structural barriers anchored in the “war on drugs” that reduce the effectiveness of harm reduction efforts. To maximize the potential of harm reduction requires a whole-of-government approach, involving coordination across levels of government. 

As noted in this recent report, “Bringing the W-G approach to bear on a complex problem depends on several components, including agreement as to the problem, understanding the problem, and the causes of the problem. For many involved in government at all levels, the harm reduction challenge unfortunately falls at the first of those hurdles.”

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Clockwise from top left: Daniela Cepeda Cuadrado, Lucía Berro Pizzarossa, Natalia Pires de Vasconcelos, Thalia Viveros Uehara

Introducing the Global Health and Rights Project’s New Affiliated Researchers

(Clockwise from top left: Daniela Cepeda Cuadrado, Lucía Berro Pizzarossa, Natalia Pires de Vasconcelos, Thalia Viveros Uehara)

The Petrie-Flom Center is excited to welcome four new affiliated researchers to the Global Health and Rights Project (GHRP).

Through regular contributions to Bill of Health, as well as workshops and other projects, GHRP affiliated researchers will bring their expertise to bear on both national and global problems, advancing critical socio-legal scholarship both within and beyond Latin America. We look forward to learning from and sharing their insights with a wider audience, and to contributing to enlarging international networks of critical praxis in global health and human rights.

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