Tag: Healthcare & Life Sciences

Rxxx: Resolving the Problem of Performer Health and Safety in the Adult Film Industry – Note by Maria de Cesare

From Volume 79, Number 3 (March 2006)
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No matter how much fascination it may provide to the lives of the lonely, the curious, the adventurous, or the ordinary, it is undeniable that pornography poses problems. This statement is not startling or revolutionary; no other industry has unfailingly produced equal parts astounding revenue, excitement, shame, and fear among every echelon of society. For decades, the adult film industry has operated a thriving worldwide empire centered in Southern California, generating billions of dollars in revenue and producing thousands of films per year. Notwithstanding its status as one of the largest industries in a heavily regulated state, the adult film industry has flourished for decades without a discernible trace of government oversight. In recent years, however, a particularly insidious problem within the industry has perched itself precariously at the threshold of the public consciousness and has threatened to end the government’s historical indifference toward the industry’s practices.

In the spring of 2004, a spate of HIV infections among performers in the Southern California adult film industry induced a panic when it was discovered that over sixty performers had been exposed to the disease. In response to the potential outbreak, several major pornography companies voluntarily halted production for several weeks, and over fifty performers who had been identified as having sexual intercourse with the infected performers agreed to place themselves on a “quarantine list,” ceasing all adult film work while awaiting their HIV test results. Although the industry’s proactive response managed to contain the infection’s spread, the crisis sharply called into question the adequacy of current screening and testing procedures in the adult film industry, and underscored the need for increased preventative measures.

 

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Partial Preemption Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act – Note by Grace Ko

From Volume 79, Number 2 (January 2006)
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The landmark Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”), which President Bill Clinton signed into law on August 21, 1996, was enacted in response to advances in information technology and their dramatic impact on the health care industry. Until recently, most medical records were paper-based, but technological developments have made it increasingly efficient to collect, retain, transmit, and exchange health care data. Title II of HIPAA includes the Administrative Simplification provisions, which mandate the promulgation and adoption of national standards for electronic transactions, thereby encouraging the use of electronic data systems.

Electronic data transmission has sped the delivery of care and the processing of claims, improved systems for identifying and treating those at risk for disease, facilitated medical research, and helped to detect fraud and abuse. But at the same time, by reducing the logistical obstacles to dissemination that had previously helped to preserve the confidentiality of hard-copy records, shifting from paper-based to electronic information systems has increased the risk that sensitive information may become vulnerable to inappropriate uses and disclosures.

Consequently, with the shift to electronic data management, there has been a concomitant increase in concerns about the confidentiality and privacy of medical information. These concerns have been compounded by changes in the health care delivery system, including the rise in integrated and managed-care networks, which have resulted in more entities maintaining and exchanging information. Increasing numbers of individuals and organizations, including some not even affiliated with physicians or health plans, now have access to medical records

 

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Rethinking Rights in Biospace – Article by Robin Feldman

From Volume 79, Number 1 (November 2005)
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Twenty-five years ago, federal courts opened the door to the biotechnology revolution by granting patents on genetic inventions. Since that time, decisions across five disparate doctrines reflect confusion over the question of whether the definition of a biotechnology invention should include things beyond the state of the art at the time of the invention. Reaching beyond the state of the art may make sense for mechanical inventions, but it is wreaking havoc in doctrines related to biotechnology.

This Article argues that in uncertain arts such as biotechnology, the definition of an invention should be limited to the state of the art at the time of the invention. Granting rights beyond knowledge at the time of the invention projects an enormous shadow across the future and creates untenable results. The temptation to restrain that reach has led to strange doctrinal twists and an unworkable body of law. After twenty-five years of experience, it is time to rethink our view of the proper shape of rights in this realm.

 

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Conceptualizing the “Fat Tax”: The Role of Food Taxes in Developed Economies – Article by Jeff Strnad

From Volume 78, Number 5 (July 2005)
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The powerful morbidity and mortality effects of diet combined with growing concern about the obesity “epidemic” have led public health scholars and public interest advocates to call for taxes on food. The proposals fall into two different categories. First, there are “junk food taxes” on less nutritious foods such as soft drinks, candy, or snack foods. Second, there are more ambitious taxes that would apply to a much broader range of foods and food components.

 

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Federal Funding of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research: An Institutional Examination – Note by Ryan Fujikawa

From Volume 78, Number 4 (May 2005)
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Stem cells present an intriguing dilemma. They tantalize with their boundless medical potential, but challenge with equally limitless questions about their ethical consequences. If not for this ethical challenge, the question of federal funding for stem cells would be simple: How much funding and to whom? Instead, ethical objections, closely related to other highly controversial political issues, sweep stem cell policy into a political vortex. In recent years, this storm has reduced science’s role in the equation – transforming the issue from a tangible question of science and technology into an abstract debate setting ethical catastrophes against as yet undiscovered miracle cures. Given the political firestorm, government actors have treaded carefully, implementing halfway measures and justifying them by obscuring portions of the real debate from the public. The resultant policy, culminating in President George W. Bush’s August 2001 limitation on federal funding to existing stem cell lines, is driven by a blend of outdated legislation and imperfect institutional arrangements – a combination that, admittedly, handicaps the nation’s ability to explore the potential benefits of human embryonic stem cells (“hES”). More importantly, the policy fails to address the fundamental problem that purportedly justifies its existence: the ability to control the issue’s controversial ethical dilemmas.

 

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Toward Correcting the Misapplication of Subrogation Doctrine in California Healthcare – Note by Steven Flower

From Volume 77, Number 5 (July 2004)
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Subrogation has been called a “sleepy, although significant subject,” and perhaps consequently, many articles treating the topic begin with a prefatory example (either real or abstract) of the potential entanglements it can create. In line with this established tradition, this Note begins with two such examples.

Roy Block was injured in an automobile accident caused by another person. Like roughly 23 million other people in California, Block belonged to a managed care organization (“MCO”). His MCO agreed to pay for the treatment of his injuries on the condition that he agree to reimburse it from any eventual tort recovery. This might seem fair since Block might otherwise recover twice for his injuries; first when the MCO paid for his treatment and then again when he recovered from the tortfeasors. Yet, what if Block was not able to recover for all of his injuries, economic or otherwise? For example, what if he suffered a total of $10,000 in damages, half of which was for medical expenses, but was forced to settle for $7,000? Should his MCO still be allowed to recover its full $5,000 claim first, even if this leaves him uncompensated for $3,000 in pain and suffering and lost wages? How should a court interpret MCO contracts that provide for this very contingency? This is one of the problems discussed in this Note.

 

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Gerontology and the Law: A Selected Annotated Bibliography: 1999-2001 Update – Bibliography by Diana C. Jaque, Jennifer S. Murray, & Jessica Wimer

From Volume 76, Number 3 (March 2003)
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This bibliography serves as the 1999–2001 update to Gerontology and the Law: A Selected Annotated Bibliography. The Gerontology and the Law Bibliography was first published in the Law Library Journal in 1980. Subsequently, six updates to the bibliography were published in the Southern California Law Review between the years 1982 and 1999. The original bibliography and the five subsequent updates provided citations of books, reports, and articles focusing on law-related topics concerning gerontology, the elderly, and aging. Following the format of the sixth update, this seventh update is more specific than its early predecessors in terms of its coverage of topics and types of materials. Like the sixth update, this annotated bibliography provides descriptive annotations that summarize the topics and/or major points discussed in the cited books or articles.

 

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