While mass shootings account for just a small fraction of the more than 36,000 lives lost to firearms in the United States every year, these devastating, large-scale events have become not only more frequent but also deadlier in recent years.
Read moreFighting Fire With Lighter Fluid: Trump Administration Housing Policy Proposals Would Exacerbate the U.S. Affordable Housing Crisis, Heightening Health Inequities
Emerging policy proposals from the Trump administration would exacerbate the U.S. affordable housing crisis, heightening heath inequities.
Read moreA Response to "Unintended Consequences: Medicaid and the Opioid Crisis"
Today, Public Health Law Watch sent a letter (both electronically and on paper) to every member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs in response to a January hearing entitled "Unintended Consequences: Medicaid and the Opioid Epidemic." That hearing and its accompanying report presented a slew of misinformation, misleading statistics, and poorly informed conclusions that attempted to blame the current opioid crisis on the expansion of Medicaid. The George Consortium members mobilized to respond with facts and real potential solutions.
Read moreLet's Get Fewer People to Die (from Northeastern Law Magazine)
Guns were never a part of my life. In the Massachusetts suburb where I grew up, my family did not go target shooting for sport and did not keep guns in the home for protection.
Read moreInvoluntary Treatment for Substance Use Disorder: A Misguided Response to the Opioid Crisis [from Harvard Health Blog]
PHLW's Leo Beletsky, Elisabeth Ryan, and Wendy Parmet authored a piece this week on the Harvard Health Blog about why involuntary commitment for substance use disorder should not be touted as a tool in the opioid crisis.
Read moreThreats to Medicaid and Community Integration for People with Disabilities
As we enter the second year of the Trump administration, Medicaid remains in the cross hairs of conservatives in Congress and the administration.
Read moreCenter for Health Policy and Law Joins Amicus Brief in Correa v. Schoeck
Public Health Law Watch is part of the Northeastern University School of Law Center for Health Policy and Law. The Center has signed on to an amicus brief, in support of the appellant-plaintiff, in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case of Correa v. Schoeck and Walgreens.
Read moreImmigration and Health Care Under the Trump Administration [from Health Affairs Blog]
After a brief hiatus during the holidays, a Nor'easter, and the dawn of a new semester, PHLW is back with this post by our own Wendy E. Parmet on the Health Affairs Blog. The piece about the current state of immigration and health care comes out of her recent presentation at the Harvard Law School Petrie-Flom Center Sixth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review in December 2016.
Read moreWill Public Health Litigation Help to Solve the Opioid Crisis?
In this week’s issue of New England Journal of Medicine, Michelle Mello and I write about drug company liability for the opioid crisis. We analyze the history of litigation efforts against opioid manufacturers and distributors to hold these parties responsible, at least in part, for the epidemic.
Read moreMinor Access to Prophylaxes in Massachusetts: STI Consent, the Mature Minor Rule, and the Definition of "Treatment"
The Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Health is currently considering House and Senate bills to amend the Commonwealth’s emergency consent statute (Section 12F), which allows certain minors to self-consent to general medical care, and allows all minors to self-consent STI diagnosis and treatment.
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