Tag: Ohio

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA, USA - NOVEMBER 4, 2008: Women voters at polls during presidential election, paper ballots.

Taking Abortion to the Polls: What To Expect in Ohio

Joelle Boxer 1 Comment

By Joelle Boxer

Dobbs “return[ed]” the authority to regulate abortion to “the people and their elected representatives.” The people of Ohio will act on that authority on November 7, demonstrating yet again the emerging role of referenda in American abortion law.

The referendum will determine if “The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety Amendment,” or Issue 1, is added to the Ohio Constitution. It reads as follows: “Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion.”

The amendment would establish a constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability (around 22-24 weeks gestation), and would include exceptions for later term abortions in instances where it is necessary to protect the pregnant person’s life or health.

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Picture of Ivermectin tablets.

Legal and Ethical Analysis of Court-Ordered Ivermectin Treatment for COVID-19

Jennifer S. Bard Leave a comment

By Jennifer S. Bard

A judge in Ohio ruled on Monday that a hospital in the region must administer ivermectin to a patient very sick with COVID-19 in their ICU, despite the decision by the medical staff, in agreement with recent statements by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that ivermectin is not an appropriate treatment, as it has been shown not to work against COVID.

The patient’s prescription came from a doctor who has no authority to treat patients at this particular hospital, although he is licensed to prescribe medicine in Ohio.

This case tracks a swelling interest, which some ascribe to the efforts of a group called America’s Front Line Doctors, among people for the anti-parasitic medication as both a treatment and prophylactic for COVID-19 — despite warnings from the medical establishment that it doesn’t work, and, if taken in the form normally given to farm animals or at the dosages being suggested, can be harmful.

The Ohio ruling is just the latest of several successful law suits (see similar cases in New York and Illinois) to order hospitals to administer ivermectin to hospitalized COVID-19 patients, despite the objections of the treating physicians.

There is also evidence of a global trend, as evidenced by the order of a court in South Africa to allow the prescription of ivermectin for COVID-19, something that was previously not permitted by the country’s drug regulatory agency.

This trend of courts ordering that treatments requested by hospitalized patients be made available by that hospital — so long as they are prescribed by a physician — opens the door to substantial administrative, legal, and ethical chaos. This post analyzes some of the most pressing legal, regulatory, and ethical concerns.

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Ohio Joins In

Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research 2 Comments

By Hosea H. Harvey, JD, PhD

Last week, Ohio joined the vast majority of states that have enacted laws designed to reduce long-term health consequences for youth athletes who suffer concussions (technically, traumatic brain injuries or TBIs) in organized youth sports activities.  Based on my research for an upcoming article “Reducing Traumatic Brain Injuries in Youth Sports” (forthcoming, American Journal of Public Health), it appears that Ohio has followed the lead of most other states by adhering to a common framework and (at the same time) has substantially innovated with respect to certain key provisions of such laws.

Most youth sports TBI laws are organized around three broad risk-reduction methods: 1) educating parents, youth athletes, and/or coaches, 2) requiring the removal of youth athletes suspected of having concussions, and 3) providing criteria that a youth athlete must meet prior to returning to athletic competition. Each of these methods are, in part, derived from legislation crafted after a tragic football injury to Zachary Lystedt in Washington, leading the state to pass the nation’s first such law in April 2009. (You can read the law on LawAtlas™)  Since then, adherence to the “Lystedt framework” has been a common feature of state-level youth sports TBI laws. In this fast-paced legislative environment, unprecedented in scope, Ohio is relatively late to the game. Yet, by moving later, Ohio’s deliberate speed has resulted in legislation that relies on the Lystedt framework but also contains innovations of uncertain efficacy.

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