The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the vulnerability of the US generic drug supply chain to foreign production. Many policies have been proposed to mitigate this vulnerability. In this article, we argue that nonprofit drug manufacturers have the potential to make important contributions.

Pharmacists with religious or ethical objections to prescribing emergency contraception won the latest round in the fight over conscience clauses in a case that could have broader implications for attempts to restrict access to contraception. In Stormans, Inc. v. Selecky, a federal District Court in Washington State granted an injunction to block the enforcement of regulations that would have forbidden pharmacists to refuse to dispense emergency contraception on the grounds of religious or ethical objections. In its decision, the court applied Supreme Court abortion precedent without explicitly ruling whether emergency contraception should be legally categorized as a form of abortion or as contraception. However, the legal status of emergency contraception affects the strength of the defendants’ claims that the law was justified on the grounds of preventing sex discrimination. In neglecting to rule one way or the other, the court not only failed to adequately consider the sex discrimination claim but also may have opened the door to more restrictive regulation on contraceptives generally.

New research and a government investigation have shed light on an anticompetitive practice called “Product Hopping” and specifically how it was employed in the case of the multiple sclerosis treatment glatiramer acetate beginning in 2014, which cost payers billions of dollars. We examine this case as well as a separate, impending instance of product hopping.

Violence is an extremely prevalent problem in the United States and throughout the world, and it is a major contributing factor to increased mortality and mortalityty. These facts are well documented in the recent Report on violence and Health published by the World Health Organization. This report, which is likely to become a landmark document in the public health community, defines violence broadly as: The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation. This World Health Organization definition encompasses three types of violence: 1) suicide and selfharm, 2) collective violence, and 3) interpersonal violence.

Interpersonal violence is defined asviolence inflicted by an individual or small group of individuals and includes youth violence, violence between intimate partners, other forms of family violence such as abuse of children and the elderly, rape and sexual assault by strangers, and violence in institutional settings such as schools, workplaces, nursing homes and prisons.

What happens when being a good doctor requires being a bad citizen? What should a doctor do when living up to the requirements of a professional code of ethics or staying true to deeply held personal values requires breaking the law? What should a health care professional do when the appropriate conduct in a particular case is inconsistent with a more generalized principle that has been incorporated into law? Further, what is the role of the ethical health lawyer who advises a health care provider facing such a dilemma?

As health care lawyers advising individuals and institutions, is it our job to advise our clients of all the options available to them, and all the potential legal consequences, or is our role simply to keep our clients acting within the law? Are we information providers, policy counselors, risk managers, or some combination of these?

Across the nation, local, state, territorial, and tribal governments are engaged in successful efforts to protect and promote the health of their citizens by supporting healthy eating and active living initiatives. The ten essential services define a role for public health at multiple levels of influence (see Table 1). These functions provide a framework for obesity prevention that is consistent with the systems approach presented by the Institute of Medicine in “Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention.”

Governmental public health authorities can contribute to public health efforts to address obesity by monitoring prevalence of obesity and association risk factors, investigating the contributing factors, informing the public, and work with the citizens in their jurisdiction to develop solutions that fit the needs and sensibilities of the people.

Over the past two decades, discussion has increased among health care professionals about joint or collaborative practice. In 1971, the American Nurses” Association (ANA) and the American Medical Association (AMA) established the National Joint Practice Commission to examine and make recommendations regarding the roles of physicians and nurses in the provision of quality health care. The Commission, comprised of three nurses and three physicians appointed respectively by the ANA and the AMA, defined joint practice as “nurses and physicians collaborating together as colleagues to provide patient care”. The purpose of this broad definition was to include all collaborating registered nurses, not only nurse practitioners.

This article explores innovative legal tools in built environment settings. Using tangible examples, the discussion will leverage the authors' expertise in the law, public health, and architecture to explore strategies in domestic and international settings to explain how healthy spaces make a direct public health impact on people's lives.

A 2009 decision by a Florida state trial court marks a recent addition to the long line of cases authorizing compelled medical treatment of pregnant women for the benefit of their unborn children. Despite recurring judicial and academic consideration of the issues involved, there is no consensus regarding the correct approach to take in cases that pit a woman's right to refuse medical treatment against the state's interest in protecting fetal health. Burton v. Florida, currently under appeal to Florida's First District Court of Appeals, demonstrates the difficulty of emergency decision-making in this area and the need for robust ex ante consideration of the important interests at stake.

In March 2009, pursuant to a petition by the State of Florida, the Leon County Circuit Court overrode a pregnant woman's informed refusal to consent to medical treatment, and ordered her to remain a hospital inpatient and submit to medical treatment.

The history of physician involvement in capital proceedings is longstanding and ripe with controversy and conflicts of ethical concerns. Previously one of us (Phillips) has written that the controversy is more appropriately characterized as a conflict of moral position rather than one of ethical dilemma.

In hindsight, we believe that analysis, while true, does not capture the depth or complexity of the issue.

Forensic psychiatric evaluations, including competency to be executed evaluations, are done with a clear understanding that no physician-patient relationship exists. Treatment, however, is not so neatly re-categorized in large measure because it involves the physician’s active provision of the healing arts.

The development of transplantation technology increasingly places before society a multitude of diverse, complex ethical and legal problems. The subject is the more complex because of the various divergent interests involved. There are the interests of the donor of organs, who has a right to protection of his legal position, and those of the patient in need of an often lifesaving organ. There are also the interests of the donor’s relatives, after his death, and those of the transplantation surgeons. The international dimension of transplantation technology makes the picture even more complicated. Though this article is devoted to the European situation, the problems are similar all over the world.

Most people dread being the subject of interest for doctors, scientists, regulators, and lawyers. While we may joke about the arrogance of the medical profession and the aggressiveness of the legal field, both lie at the core of environmental public health (EPH). They are inseparable, sometimes complementary and other times in tension. The role of medicine and science in EPH is clear, but their relationship with law is often opaque. Yet in no other area of public health, from infectious and chronic disease prevention to providing health care in underserved communities, is law so central as an instrument and partner. In this article we explore the relationship of law and science in the broader context of EPH, beginning with an overview of potential goals and challenges. We then offer three organizing principles that inform and guide the integration of law, science and policy in EPH.

In this paper we report findings from a commissioned report to the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition on approaches to streamline multinational REC review/approval during public health emergencies. As currently envisioned in the literature, a system of REC mutual recognition is theoretically possible based on shared procedural REC standards, but raises numerous concerns about perceived inequities and mistrust.