Letter From the Editor

AJLM will solicit blind comments from expert peer reviewers, including faculty members of our editorial board, as well as from other preeminent health law and public policy academics and professionals from across the country and around the world.

In Tepid Defense of Population Health: Physicians and Antibiotic Resistance

Antibiotic resistance menaces the population as a dire public health threat and costly social problem. Recent proposals to combat antibiotic resistance focus to a large degree on supply side approaches. Suggestions include tinkering with patent rights so that pharmaceutical companies have greater incentives to discover novel antibiotics as well as to resist overselling their newer drugs already on market. This Article argues that a primarily supply side emphasis unfortunately detracts attenti...

Adjudicating Severe Birth Injury Claims in Florida and Virginia: The Experience of a Landmark Experiment in Personal Injury Compensation

A number of legal and policy scholars have argued that moving to an administrative compensation system for medical injuries would overcome many of the problems with the current, fault-based medical malpractice system.12 Such a system would use a non-judicial process, specialized adjudicators, and neutral medical experts to award limited compensation to injured patients based on a standard that is broader than negligence.13 It would jettison negligence as the decisive standard for compensation...

Drug Preemption and the Need to Reform the Fda Consultation Process

The agency itself has issued a policy that favors preemption when a drug manufacturer consults with the agency about a new risk.2 The Supreme Court has found liability preempted for medical devices based on an express preemption provisions3 and is expected to make an important ruling on drug preemption this term in Wyeth v. Levine.* Some believe that the Court will rule in favor of preemption even though there is no express statutory provision for drugs.5 The appropriateness of drug preemptio...

Book Review: Skegg &Amp; Paterson, Medical Law in New Zealand[Dagger]

The independence and objectivity of key disciplinary and credentialing bodies from vested interested within the medical profession are also in doubt. Because of lack of public confidence in these processes, patients tend to employ malpractice litigation as an avenue for expressing grievances and sanctioning "bad apple" doctors.

Right Idea, Wrong Result - Canada's Access to Medicines Regime

In response to concerns about access to medication in developing countries and confusion regarding the meaning of Articles 31 and 27, the World Trade Organization (WTO) adopted the Doha Declaration in 2001 (the Declaration).18 The Declaration specifies that national governments can issue compulsory licenses when public health concerns outweigh the importance of intellectual property protection.19 It allows the developing country to determine what constitutes a national public health emergency...

Prescription Drug Data-Mining: Federal Appellate Court Upholds Law That Guards Privacy of Prescribing Practices and Rejects Free Speech Challenge - Ims Health, Inc. V. Ayotte1

Federal Appellate Court Upholds Law that Guards Privacy of Prescribing Practices and Rejects Free Speech Challenge - IMS Health, Inc. v. Ayotte1 - The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that a New Hampshire statute,2 which bans the transfer or sale of physicians' prescribing information for certain commercial purposes, regulates conduct rather than protected speech and does not violate the First Amendment.3 The plaintiffs, IMS Health, Inc. and Verispan, LLC, are two of ...

Select Recent Court Decisions

False Claims Act: U.S. Supreme Court Finds Intent to Defraud the Government Required for § 3729(a) (2) and (3) Claims - Allison Engine Co. V. United States Ex. Rel. Sanders1

Sanders1 - The United States Supreme Court held that plaintiffs asserting a § 3729(a)(2) claim under the False Claims Act2 must prove that the defendant intended that the false statement be material to the Government's decision to pay or approve the false claim.3 Similarly, a plaintiff asserting a claim under § 3729(a)(3) must show that the conspirators agreed to make use of false statements to achieve the same.4 The facts of the case surround a contract with the Navy and two shipyards to bui...