Public Health Law Watch Comments on HHS Regulation Proposal: Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights

Public Health Law Watch, joined by our friends at the Public Health Law Center, submitted official comments to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services proposed amendments to 45 CFR 88, "Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights; Delegations of Authority." Based on our combined expertise in public health law and policy, we offered comments on five main issues: (1) the lack of evidence that these rule revisions are necessary; (2) the absence of consideration for patients who face refusal of care; (3) the potentially dangerous expansion of existing definitions around “conscience protections;” (4) the potential harm these rules will cause for the LGBTQ population; and (5) the detriment these proposals would cause to reproductive health and rights.

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Legal Skills Through a Health Justice Lens: First-Year Northeastern Law Students Work Toward Health, Equity, and Justice for Two Oppressed Groups

We have a really special post today - George Consortium member Jason Potter describes his innovative work as a professor and also the work of his students here at Northeastern University School of Law. These first year law students studied legal skills through a lens of health justice, and turned health justice theory into practice by partnering with non-profit organizations and creating tangible guidance on issues of safe consumption facilities and barriers to health care for transgender individuals.

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Immigration 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.

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Making America Healthy Again: Analyzing Trump's Take on the Social Determinants of Health [from Health Affairs Blog]

George Consortium member and Northeastern University professor Patricia Illingsworth concludes on the Health Affairs Blog that the Trump administration shows "little interest in addressing the social determinants" of health, such as "education, socioeconomic status, poverty, the physical and social environment, employment, and discrimination, among others..."  

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Law Enforcement, Drugs, and the 'Public Health' Approach [from The Crime Report]

Leo Beletsky, George Consortium founding member and Associate Professor of Law and Health Sciences at Northeastern University School of Law, wrote "Law Enforcement, Drugs, and the 'Public Health' Approach," for The Crime Report in April 2016.  Watch tomorrow for a new piece about the law in Massachusetts that allows individuals with substance use disorders to be involuntarily committed to secure facilities for up to three months.  

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