May 17, 2024
Public Policy
May 14, 2024
Schumer’s Long-Awaited AI ‘Road Map’ Is Coming This Week. It Will Cost Billions.
(Washington Post via MSN) – A bipartisan group of senators, including Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, will unveil a long-awaited “road map” this week for regulating artificial intelligence, directing Congress to infuse billions of dollars into research and development of … Read More
May 14, 2024
Virginia Judge to Decide Whether State Law Considers Embryos as Property
(Associated Press) – A trial is underway in Virginia that will determine whether state law allows frozen embryos to be considered property that can be divided up and assigned a monetary value. Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Dontae Bugg heard … Read More
May 13, 2024
Hospitals’ New Message for Patients: Stay Home
(Politico) – Hospitals want you to visit them less often. Empowered by Washington and armed with Covid-inspired health innovations, health executives are seeking to increasingly move care outside of the hospital — despite the seeming risk to their bottom line. … Read More
May 9, 2024
Gay Couple Sues New York Leaders Over Denial of IVF Benefits in Landmark Case
(The Guardian) – A former New York assistant district attorney and his husband on Thursday filed a class-action lawsuit against New York City, Mayor Eric Adams, former mayor Bill de Blasio and other city leaders in a landmark case for … Read More
May 8, 2024
The US Is Cracking Down on Synthetic DNA
(Wired) – The White House has issued new rules aimed at companies that manufacture synthetic DNA after years of warnings that a pathogen made with mail-order genetic material could accidentally or intentionally spark the next pandemic. The rules, released on … Read More
May 2, 2024
Kentucky First State to Decriminalize Medical Errors
(MedPage Today) – Kentucky has become the first state to decriminalize medical errors — a move many medical associations support. HB 159 was signed by Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear on March 26 after passing the state legislature earlier that … Read More
May 2, 2024
Taming IVF’s Wild West
(The New Atlantis) – Real regulation is long overdue. But consumer protection is not enough. The confusion brings to light a fundamental conflict in how IVF has been regulated, and how it hasn’t. The effect of existing law for decades … Read More
April 29, 2024
State Health Care Plans Can’t Exclude Gender-Affirming Surgeries, Court Rules
(Axios) – State health care plans must cover gender-affirming surgeries, a federal appeals court in Virginia ruled Monday. Why it matters: The ruling marks a major victory for transgender rights at a time when many states have cracked down on … Read More
April 26, 2024
How Treatment of Miscarriages Is Upending the Abortion Debate
(Los Angeles Times via Yahoo! News) – For decades, the abortion wars have centered on whether a woman should be able to decide when and if she has a child. But with increasingly strict restrictions on reproductive rights being enacted … Read More
April 26, 2024
A New Edition of The New England Journal of Medicine Is Now Available
April 24, 2024
How the TikTok Ban Could Survive a Court Challenge
(Platformer) – On Tuesday, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass an aid package for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan that also includes a measure to force the divestment of TikTok. Observers expect final passage of the bill sometime in the next … Read More
April 24, 2024
A New Edition of Research Ethics is Now Available
April 23, 2024
Biden Administration Sets Higher Staffing Mandates. Most Nursing Homes Don’t Meet Them.
(KFF Health News) – The new rules from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are the most substantial changes to federal oversight of the nation’s roughly 15,000 nursing homes in more than three decades. But they are less stringent … Read More
April 23, 2024
SCOTUS Weighs Strict Abortion Ban Against Emergency Care Law
(Axios) – The Supreme Court this week will consider whether a federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency care overrides Idaho’s strict abortion ban. Why it matters: The case justices will hear Wednesday focuses on a key Biden administration effort … Read More
April 23, 2024
Lawmaker Withdraws Sweeping California Bill to Expand Assisted Dying
(Politico) – The author of a California bill that aimed to create the most expansive assisted dying law in the country has pulled the proposal, meaning it won’t be considered this year. San Diego area Sen. Catherine Blakespear confirmed after … Read More
April 19, 2024
Congress Fast-Tracks TikTok Ban Legislation, Setting Up Possible Passage This Month
(Wall Street Journal) – Congress is fast-tracking a bipartisan effort to crack down on TikTok that could lead to passage of a law this month forcing a sale or eventual ban of the popular Chinese-controlled app in the U.S. The … Read More
April 18, 2024
Your Brain Waves Are Up for Sale. A New Law Wants to Change That.
(New York Times) – With the advent of consumer neurotechnologies, the data being collected is becoming ever more intimate. One headband serves as a personal meditation coach by monitoring the user’s brain activity. Another purports to help treat anxiety and … Read More
April 17, 2024
A New Edition of American Journal of Law & Medicine Is Now Available
April 16, 2024
Chinese Company Under Congressional Scrutiny Makes Key U.S. Drugs
(New York Times) – A Chinese company targeted by members of Congress over potential ties to the Chinese government makes blockbuster drugs for the American market that have been hailed as advances in the treatment of cancers, obesity and debilitating … Read More
April 15, 2024
Greater Numbers of Younger People Got Permanent Contraception After Dobbs Decision, Study Finds
(CNN) – In the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, more young adults in the United States took pregnancy off the table entirely, new research has shown. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, the US … Read More
April 12, 2024
‘I’m Dying, You’re Not’: Those Terminally Ill Ask More States to Legalize Physician-Assisted Death
(ABC News) – “Medical-aid in dying is not me choosing to die,” she says she told her 17-year-old grandson. “I am going to die. But it is my way of having a little bit more control over what it looks … Read More
April 11, 2024
How Florida and Arizona Supreme Court Rulings Change the Abortion Access Map
(NPR) – In a few weeks, Florida and Arizona are set to join most states in the southern U.S. in banning abortion. It’s a significant shake up to the abortion legal landscape, and data shared exclusively with NPR maps and … Read More
April 10, 2024
Arizona Supreme Court Bans Nearly All Abortions, Reviving 160-Year-Old Law
(Wall Street Journal) – Arizona’s highest court revived a 160-year-old ban on nearly all abortions, a decision that turns up the political heat on an issue that is pivotal in the battleground state and beyond for the 2024 presidential race. … Read More
April 8, 2024
Almost No One Is Happy with Legal Weed
(The Atlantic) – The legalization of cannabis in the United States—the biggest change in policy for an illegal substance since Prohibition ended—has been an unqualified success for approximately no one. True, the drug is widely available for commercial purchase, many … Read More
