NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
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October 2018
Volume 6, Number 1
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Greetings from the Center Directors
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Wendy E. Parmet
Faculty Director
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Jennifer Lea Huer
Managing Director
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About the Center for Health Policy and Law
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Based in Northeastern University School of Law, the Center for Health Policy and Law draws from participating departments across Northeastern University to provide a rich context for students and researchers interested in public health law, health and human rights, health governance, intellectual property, bioethics, health care delivery law and the regulation of our health care system. It is guided by faculty and staff with diverse areas of expertise and is affiliated with an array of university-wide institutes, programs and experiential learning opportunities.
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U.S. News & World Report
Ranks NUSL #14 for Health Care Law
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Save the Date: 2019 Annual Health Law Conference
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Keynote Speaker:
John D. Halamka, MD
Chief Information Officer, Beth Israel Deaconess System
Luncheon Speaker:
Iyah Romm
CEO, CityBlock Health
Call for Papers
In conjunction with our annual health law conference, we are once again partnering with the
Northeastern University Law Review by issuing a
call for papers. Selected authors will present at the April conference and will be invited to contribute to an issue of the law review. Abstract submissions are due November 12, 2018. Please read the call for more information.
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Public Health Advocacy Institute Helps Deliver $113 million Verdict Against R.J. Reynolds
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The law school’s
Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI), under the direction of Professor Richard Daynard, played a lead role in two tobacco lawsuits tried in August in St. Thomas, V.I. The cases,
Gerald v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and
Brown v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., were brought on behalf of two deceased smokers who had been hooked on Newport cigarettes as minors. “The juries saw through the defendant’s con game: they addicted these two smokers through deceptive advertising and free samples, made thousands of dollars of profits from their subsequent purchase of Newports, and then tried to blame them for their ‘irresponsible’ decision to keep using these products,” said Daynard.
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Haupt Selected as ASLME Health Law Scholar
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Professor Claudia Haupt was one of four health law scholars selected for this year’s Health Law Scholars Workshop, held in September. Announced at the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics’ annual Health Law Professors Conference, the competitively selected scholars are invited to present and workshop their research in progress and receive in-depth advice from experienced health law academics.
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Health in Justice Action Lab Responds to Critical Challenges
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“We need more action and less talk when it come to solving our public health crises,” says Professor Leo Beletsky, co-founder and faculty director of the new
Health in Justice Action Lab
, which advocates for community well-being through public health principles and opposes the criminalization of health and social problems. Engaging with academic, community, government and private partners, the lab informs responses to today’s most critical challenges, including reducing drug overdose; improving access to health and social services for people ensnared by the criminal justice system; and aligning law enforcement practices with public health goals.
True to Northeastern’s mission, Health in Justice is also an opportunity to prepare the next generation of leaders in legal, health and social services professions. To accomplish its goals, Health in Justice generates knowledge through interdisciplinary research; translates knowledge into policies and programs; and implements policies and programs to advance health and justice.
Current projects include:
- Challenging the surge in punitive responses to the current opioid crisis, including drug-induced homicide prosecutions and coercive drug treatment programs.
- Reframing cannabis reform as an opportunity to advance social and racial justice.
- Designing and deploying police training to maximize the benefit and minimize harm from encounters with law enforcement among the most vulnerable members of the community.
Visit
www.healthinjustice.org to learn more and access the Health in Justice project portfolio, data dashboards, toolkits and additional resources.
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Changing the Narrative of Addiction
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In September, the Center for Health Policy and Law and the Health in Justice Action Lab hosted a gathering of more than 50 journalists, advocates and experts to kick off an initiative focused on changing the way the media and other communication forums talk about addiction, substance use disorders (SUD) and treatment. For more information and/or to receive related updates, contact
j.huer@northeastern.edu.
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Assistant/Associate/Full Professor of Health Law
Northeastern University School of Law is seeking candidates for full-time, tenured or tenure-track faculty positions. Areas of particular interest include: health law (including FDA law, public health law, health care financing and other health-related fields), intellectual property, law and technology, and information security.
Legal Fellow
We are hiring a legal fellow to oversee the
Public Health Law Watch initiative, a collaborative venture between the Center for Health Policy and Law and the George Consortium.
Apply now!
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Our faculty are frequently quoted in leading national publications. Follow our
news page to see the full listing.
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Inside Our Secret Courts
In a recent investigative piece,
The Boston Globe's Spotlight team dug into the practice of holding secret, closed-door hearings, known as "show cause hearings," to handle criminal cases in Massachusetts courts. Margo Lindauer, director of the law school's Domestic Violence Institute, told the Spotlight team, “The clerks’ hearings are like the wild, wild West. There are no rules of evidence. It's not recorded. The clerks don't have to be lawyers. And they all manage the proceedings really differently.”
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Overdose and Punishment
“We’ve had these laws, and we have more people on drug-related charges behind bars, per capita, than any other nation on earth, currently, and yet heroin is more widely available and cheaper than it’s ever been,” Professor Leo Beletsky tells
The New Republic.
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Bulwark Against an Abortion Ban? Medical Advances
“We’re in a new world now,” Professor Aziza Ahmed tells
The New York Times. “The majority of American women are on some form of contraception. We take it for granted that we can control when and how we want to reproduce. We see pregnancy as within the realm that we can control.”
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Critics Fear Surge in Gambling Addiction After Court Ruling
A recent Supreme Court ruling struck down a ban on sports betting. Expressing concern that this ruling could increase access to gambling overall, especially for individuals who exhibit addictive behavior, Professor Richard Daynard tells the
New York Post, “There is going to be a lot more gambling. What the Supreme Court has done is to facilitate expanding gambling basically to everybody’s desktop.”
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Selected Recent Faculty Publications
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Selected highlights from core members of our team. Please visit our website for a full listing.
Aziza Ahmed
Brook Baker
Leo Beletsky
Claudia Haupt
Jennifer Huer
Kristin Madison
Wendy Parmet
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Fall Faculty Presentations
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Aziza Ahmed
Panel: Vulnerability and the Strategies of the Responsive State
September 2018
Professor Brook Baker
Panel: Access to Medicines
September 2018
Health Global Access Project (GAP) Strategy Retreats, San Juan (Puerto Rico)
October 2018
Panel: HIV/AIDS: Access and Equity
October 2018
Claudia Haupt
Speaker and paper presentation: Artificial Professional Advice
September 2018
October 2018
Panel:
AI, Robotics, and the Practice of Medicine
November 2018
Panel: Sex and the Freedom of Expression
November 2018.
Professor Wendy Parmet
Hosted by the Network for Public Health Law and ASLME
Plenary and Panelist
October 2018
October 2018
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Student and Graduate Highlights
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Health Law Scholar Profile: Catherine Houser ’20
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While earning a bachelor’s in health policy and international studies from the University of Utah, Catherine Houser interned with the US Department of Health and Human Services, where she analyzed trends in LGBTQ community health and federally led initiatives to combat LGBTQ health disparities. Prior to law school, she was a policy fellow at Sorenson Impact and this past summer she went on her first Northeastern law co-op at East Bay Community Law Center in Berkeley, Calif., where she worked with the organization’s Health and Welfare Practice.
This year the law school welcomed its second class of Health Law Scholars. Scholars receive full-tuition scholarships based on their demonstrated interested in and commitment to pursuing careers in health policy and law. Each newsletter issue highlights one of our scholars.
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Health Law Student Chosen as Rappaport Fellow
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Siri Nelson ’19, who is actively involved in the law school’s health-related programming, was selected for a prestigious
Rappaport Fellowship this summer to support a co-op at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS). Nelson shares her experience at EOTSS and explains how it helped to further develop her interest in data security and privacy in the health care field in an article on
mass.gov.
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Health Law Alumnus: PJ McCann
’09, Boston Public Health Commission
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PJ McCann, who has long had an interest in policy and local government, used his Northeastern law co-ops to explore a broad range of related opportunities and possibilities that exist within that space. In doing so, he began to see all the ways in which local government impacts policy.
After finishing law school, he applied for a policy analyst position in the Office of Intergovernmental Relations at the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC). He was attracted to the position because it was not a traditional legal role; it offered the opportunity to flex his legal research and writing skills, while at the same time allowing him to focus on the connections and motivations of the various stakeholders involved in influencing and making public health policy. Within his new role, McCann found that he was uniquely qualified to dig deeper into the policy questions he and his team faced.
After two years, McCann was appointed assistant general counsel in the General Counsel Office, where his portfolio expanded to include more traditional legal work, such as public health litigation for the city of Boston. He was also able to maintain one foot in the policy world. One of the most important lessons he learned during his tenure with the Boston Public Health Commission is the vital role consensus building plays in shaping policy.
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Maura Healey ’98 Selected as One of
TIME Magazine’s Top 50 Leaders in Health Care
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Massachusetts Attorney General and Northeastern University School of Law alumna Maura Healey was recently chosen by
TIME magazine as one of the “50 Most Influential People in Health Care.” During her tenure as attorney general, Healey has been tireless in her efforts to protect and expand access to health care. Among her many accomplishments, Healey has fought against limiting access to reproductive health care and has sued pharmaceutical companies for contributing to the opioid crisis.
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Lunch & Learn Speaker Series
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Two of the law school’s Centers of Excellence – the Center for Health Policy and Law and the Center for Law, Innovation and Creativity (CLIC) – are joining forces with the law school’s New Markets Partnership to launch a
Lunch & Learn Speaker Series
aimed at increasing student access and engagement with graduates and practitioners in non-traditional legal roles.
Monthly lunch conversations will take place throughout the academic year and will connect to broader initiatives that the School of Law is establishing to expand its cooperative legal education program and post-graduate opportunities for students.
The first Lunch & Learn took place on October 24.
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Reproductive Rights Advocate Brigitte Amiri to Deliver Annual Health Law Lecture
November 9
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Over the past year, Amiri has been at the center of a national, high-profile lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s policy of preventing young immigrant women from having abortions. Last fall, Amiri successfully argued on behalf of a 17-year-old woman, Jane Doe, who was able to get abortion care after an appeals court in Washington, DC, issued a decision that cleared the way. The fight continues with a class action case against the Department of Health and Human Services so that all Jane Does would have this same right.
This event is free and open to the public. Visit our
website for more information.
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What systems do survivors need and utilize? Where do these systems let survivors down along the path to health, justice, safety and empowerment? Who has been and continues to be left out of this conversation?
This one-day conference will explore the many barriers domestic violence survivors face, as well as potential solutions to bridging the gaps and linking the systems. Speakers and attendees represent multiple disciplines and sectors, including the judiciary, lawyer, academics, advocates, health care providers, social workers, politicians, faith leaders, policymakers and survivors.
Sponsored by the Center for Health Policy and Law and the law school’s Domestic Violence Institute
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Health Law Roundtables - Fall 2018
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September 11
Claudia Haupt
Associate Professor of Law and Political Science
Northeastern University
October 24
Diagnosis Errors and Improvement in Care
Dr. Gordon Schiff
Associate Physician and Associate Director, Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Associate Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
November 14
Policy to Practice: Drafting Policies to Optimize Physician Assistant Practice
Dipu Patel-Junankar
Associate Program Director and Assistant Clinical Professor, Physician Assistant Program
Bouvé College of Health Sciences
Northeastern University
December 5
Single-Payer Reform and Behavioral Health Services: Opportunities and Challenges
David Rochefort
Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Political Science
Northeastern University
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2020 Health Law Professors Conference at Northeastern
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The Center for Health Policy and Law is thrilled to announce that, in collaboration with the
American Society of Law, Medicine, & Ethics (ASLME), Northeastern University School of Law will host the 2020 Health Law Professors Conference! The conference will draw more than 200 health policy and law academics and scholars from across the nation for a three-day event intended to facilitate intense discussion, scholarship and research dissemination, and collaboration.
Save the date:
June 3-5, 2020, and stay tuned for more information.
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October 19-20
Faculty workshop leaders affiliated with the Center for Health Policy and Law:
Brook Baker, Michael Pollastri and Richard Wamai
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October 23
Community Forum on Question 1
In November, voters in Massachusetts will be asked to vote on
Question 1 (
mandatory nurse staffing ratios).
This proposed law would limit how many patients could be assigned to each registered nurse in Massachusetts hospitals and certain other health care facilities. The maximum number of patients per registered nurse would vary by type of unit and level of care.
To better understand the issue, we are hosting a community forum for all Northeastern faculty, staff, students and alumni/ae. External and community partners are also invited to attend. We encourage attendees to participate in a robust Q&A session following the panel.
Speakers included representatives from:
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October 24
Rita Heimes
General Counsel, Research Director and Data Privacy Officer
International Association of Privacy Professionals
Sponsored by the Center for Health Policy and Law, the Center for Law, Innovation and Creativity (CLIC), and New Markets Partnerships.
Visit our
website for more information on future dates and speakers.
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Email
lawhealth@northeastern.edu
if you would like to subscribe to our mailing list and stay up-to-date on events, scholarship and opportunities for collaboration.
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Follow us
@NUSLHealth for the latest news, photos and commentary on health policy and law!
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The Center for Health Policy and Law is an affiliate of the
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