Medical Caduceus Symbol as Scales with backlight over Wall in dark room.

Gender-Affirming Care, Abortion, and the Politics of Science: A Response to Wuest’s ‘Born this Way’

By Aziza Ahmed

On August 21, 2023, the 11th Circuit issued a decision that allowed a ban on transgender care to go into effect in Alabama. The Alabama ban, formally called the Alabama Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, is one of the most extreme of the many bans on gender affirming care. The law defines sex as the “biological state of being female or male, based on sex organs, chromosomes and endogenous hormone profiles…genetically encoded into a person at the moment of conception…” and targets physicians who might undermine this notion of sex with criminal prosecution. Their punishment could be up to ten years in prison.

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Medical Development Laboratory: Caucasian Female Scientist Looking Under Microscope, Analyzes Petri Dish Sample. Specialists Working on Medicine, Biotechnology Research in Advanced Pharma Lab.

Monthly Round-Up of What to Read on Pharma Law and Policy

By Ameet Sarpatwari, Alexander Egilman, andAaron S. Kesselheim

Each month, members of the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) review the peer-reviewed medical literature to identify interesting empirical studies, policy analyses, and editorials on health law and policy issues.

Below are the citations for papers identified from the month of March. The selections feature topics ranging from an analysis of patent challenges by generic manufacturers on brand-name inhalers, a discussion of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA lawsuit and its potential implications for pharmaceutical regulation, and an estimate of U.S. public investment in the development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. A full posting of abstracts/summaries of these articles may be found on our website.

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