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Nanotechnology in Global Medicine and Human Biosecurity: Private Interests, Policy Dilemmas, and the Calibration of Public Health Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Thomas A. Faunce
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Extract

This article explores a unique opportunity for shaping public health law and policy to reflect a greater balance between public and private goods in two areas of primary concern to human well-being: medicine and human biosecurity. This opportunity is presented both by the rapid changes likely to occur in these areas as a result of nanotechnology and the fact that multinational corporate actors have not yet had the opportunity to use their well-honed techniques of governance influence to modify public health policy and law in this area to their own narrowly focused advantage. Such a rare opportunity to rethink some fundamental assumptions about a regulatory framework for globally important health issues in advance is one reason why issues concerning nanotechnology regulation in medicine and human biosecurity should have considerable interest to health law and policy scholars.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , Winter 2007 , pp. 629 - 642
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2007

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