UHLC Nota Bene

Professor Jessica L.Roberts , Director of the Health Law & Policy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center , and Elizabeth Weeks , Associate Dean for Faculty Development at the University of Georgia School of Law , propose in this book a new protected category – the unhealthy – and a new form of discrimination – healthism. They say in the Preface that not all differentiation on the basis health necessarily constitutes healthism and their aim is to distinguish the “good” health distinctions from the “bad,” or “healthist” ones. They do not argue against differentiation on the basis of health status when doing so promotes responsible behaviors, but they do consider such differentiation undesirable when it perpetuates existing health disparities and social disadvantage. The first chapter discusses the meaning of the term “healthism.” Chapter two delves into understanding it and sets forth a rubric in table form with two major categories: 1) Characteristics ...

The O’Quinn Law Library recently acquired the second edition of The Law of Later-Life Healthcare and Decision Making , by Lawrence A. Frolik. This book, a publication of the American Bar Association, is a comprehensive guide to health-related legal issues facing the elderly. It contains sections on paying for health care, long-term care housing options, paying for long-term care, the legal implications of mental incapacity, and end-of-life decision making. The second edition has been updated to reflect recent statutory changes and developments in case law. The book is available in the library at KF3608.A4F76 2017. The following titles in the library’s collection are recommended for further reading in this area: Medicare and Medicaid Guide – KF3608.A4.C64 Master Medicare Guide – KF3608.A4.M347 Mastering Elder Law – KF390.A4B73 2015    

Looking for a way to compare the states on various performance measures?   One resource that can help with this is States Perform .   This website, from the Council of State Governments , allows users to compare all 50 states on various measures related to fiscal and economic issues, education, transportation, energy and environment, public safety and justice, and health and human services.   For instance you can compare states on their crime rates, renewable energy generation, or percentage of children who are immunized.   You can also view or compare state trends in the data.   If you don’t want to compare, you can select a particular state to view all of its performance measures.   Finally, you can create customizable charts and maps with the data, which can be printed or downloaded in various file formats.   To explore this data and compare the states, visit the States Perform website.  

If you need to find information regarding corporate misconduct regarding the environment, health, or safety, try the Violation Tracker database from the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First .   Released in 2015, this resource contains information regarding enforcement data covering 2010 to 2015 from a number of different federal agencies charged with enforcing various environmental, health, and safety laws.   Penalty amounts were found using agency enforcement records and settlement announcements.   The data can be accessed in a couple of ways.   Users can choose from a variety of summary pages providing overviews of violations by parent company (e.g. American Airlines or Exxon Mobil), industry (e.g. healthcare services or telecommunications), agency (e.g. Food and Drug Administration or Justice Department), or by state/country where the company is headquartered.   Users can also run searches to find all of the violations involving a specific co...

The New York Times reported this week that Congress has passed legislation to amend the Affordable Care Act with the goal of protecting midsize businesses with 51-100 employees from increases in health insurance costs. These costs would result from the new requirements set to take effect on January 1, 2016. Currently, small employers, which typically are defined by states as consisting of 50 or less employees, are protected these the Affordable Care Act requirements.  The revision allows states to expand the definition of "small group" to include businesses 51-100 employees, protecting them from the new provisions as well. This act, known as Protecting Affordable Coverage for Employees Act (PACE), H.R. 1624 , was introduced by Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Kentucky) , and the Senate version (S. 1099) was introduced by Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) and Senator Jean Shaheen (D-NH) earlier this year. Congress.gov has the full text of the bill is available along with the status , CRS S...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that approximately 48 million people per year get sick from foodborne diseases and it seems like every day we hear about another disease outbreak caused by contaminated food.   Now, recent activity from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is aimed at preventing these illnesses.   On September 10, the FDA released long-anticipated new rules regarding food safety.   The rules are in response to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), passed in 2011, which was the most extensive reform of food safety laws in over 70 years.   According to the FDA website , this law “aims to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus from responding to contamination to preventing it.”    The two final rules released this week are the first of seven major rules the FDA is planning to release in order to implement the FSMA.   The new rules include the Current Good Manufacturing Practice ...

When practicing in areas heavily regulated by government agencies, guidance documents can be invaluable resources. Generally, guidance documents describe the agency's interpretation of or policy on a regulatory issue. While these documents are often available through the agency’s website(s), they are often scattered throughout site and not always kept up to date. The larger the agency, the more difficult it can be to make sure you have performed a comprehensive search. For example, it is easy to find the EPA’s list of significant guidance documents , but there is no tool to perform comprehensive searches of all the agency’s guidance documents.  The Food and Drug Administration is another large agency that produces a large number of guidance documents addressing a wide range of topics. The FDA’s guidance documents include documents relating to (1) the design, production, labeling, promotion, manufacturing, and testing of regulated products, (2) the processing, content, and eval...

LawAtlas: The Policy Surveillance Portal is a website created by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Public Health Law Research program and Temple University providing information about state laws that impact public health.   This free tool covers a wide variety of health policy topics such as alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs; environmental health; infectious disease prevention and control; health services; and occupational safety and health.    Once you find a topic of interest, you find out which states have laws on that issue.   The website provides information about particular state law provisions as well as links to the entire text of the state code sections.   For each topic, it also provides links to related information such as journal articles, websites, and government reports.   For more information, see the website’s FAQ page.  

In recent years, the prevalence and use of synthetic designer drugs has posed great problems for legislatures, particularly compounds commonly known as “Spice” and “Bath Salts.” Spice is a generic name for synthetic cannabinoids, which are compounds that are not the same as, but that mimic the effects of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), or the compound responsible for producing the psychological effects associated with smoking marijuana.  Bath salts are synthetic forms of Beta-ketone amphetamine compounds derived from cathinone, found naturally in the khat plant, native to East Africa and Southern Arabia. These chemicals are structurally similar to amphetamines and have similar effects on the brain and the body as amphetamines. Despite the dangers associated with these drugs, including reports over 120 overdoses related to Spice in Texas over a period of five days , state legislatures have had difficulty regulating these drugs. Since 2011, all fifty states have enacted laws to ban ...

The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) recently revealed details about its plan to make articles and data resulting from the research it funds available to the public for free.   The plan is in response to a directive issued by the White House in 2013.   The goal of the directive is to ensure that the “direct results of federally funded scientific research are made available to and useful for the public, industry, and the scientific community.” The AHRQ is not the first agency to release its plan for public access, as the Department of Energy unveiled its plan in 2014.   That plan establishes the DOE Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science (DOE PAGES), which is currently being beta tested.   More public access plans are forthcoming, as the directive instructed all federal agencies with “over $100 million in annual conduct of research and development expenditures” to create such a plan.   The AHRQ plan explains that scho...

There has been a great deal of controversy in recent years about conflicts of interest in the health care industry, particularly with regard to payments made by pharmaceutical companies to physicians for consultation on new drugs. In order to promote transparency in this area, Congress passed the Physicians Payments Sunshine Act (Section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act ), which requires applicable manufacturers to submit data about these kinds of financial relationships to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). This data will be posted online as part of the Open Payments program, and is scheduled to be publicly available no later than September 30, 2014. New data will be reported annually. For more information about the Open Payments program, see the CMS website .      

If you’re a law student looking for a little inspiration about which practice area to pursue, the May 2014 issue of the ABA’s Student Lawyer magazine provides information about three of the hottest practice areas right now.  Currently, there is a greater need for energy law, health law, and regulatory law attorneys.   These are areas where the UHLC is strong and students will find a variety of course offerings on these subjects.  To learn more, students might want to peruse the UHLC course catalog with these practice areas in mind or check out the websites for the Environment, Energy, & Natural Resources Center and the Health Law and Policy Institute .   For more general information about these practice areas, try visiting the Texas Bar Association’s Administrative and Public Law, Health Law , and Oil, Gas, and Energy Law section websites as well as the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice , Environment, Ener...