In this Article, we discuss how these principles for balancing apply in a number of important contexts where individually identifiable health data are shared. In Part I, we analyze the modern view favoring autonomy and privacy. In the last several decades, individual autonomy has been used as a...

On January 19, 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published its final rule on the control of communicable conditions. Following years of attempted reforms of its existing, antiquated regulations, CDC's rule enhances the powers of federal agents to detect, test, apprehend,...

On January 19, 2017, the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and multiple federal agencies published final amendments to the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects (aka the “Common Rule”). Introduced in 1991 based on...

The recent $270 million settlement of Purdue Pharmaceuticals and the State of Oklahoma on March 26, 2019 concerning the state's opioid litigation is a harbinger of industry settlements to come. Thousands of opioid-related cases with impending trial dates may stimulate opioid manufacturers,...

Zika virus has emerged as a global public health crisis with active transmission in the Americas and Caribbean. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), and recently WHO reported there is a scientific consensus that Zika is a cause...

Despite increasing and significant global risks from emerging infectious diseases, federal powers to conduct accurate surveillance and non-therapeutic countermeasures are antiquated and, at times, ineffectual. After several prior attempts to modernize its rules over the past decade, the U.S....

In a 2019 report by Woolf and Schoomaker, average life expectancy in the U.S. was revealed to be in decline from 2014-2017, a trend which the COVID-19 pandemic is anticipated to exacerbate in 2020. As we assess in this commentary, concerted actions to address these declines are highly warranted....

Recent events such as Hurricane Katrina and the global SARS outbreak underscore the importance of having public health and medical systems that are prepared to increase surge capacity in a variety of emergency scenarios. A core component to increasing surge capacity is the availability of...

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed significant weaknesses of the U.S. federalist system in controlling major infectious disease threats. At the root of American failures to adequately respond is a battle over public health primacy in emergency preparedness and response. Which level of...

Escalating demands for limited food supplies at America’s food banks and pantries during the COVID-19 pandemic have raised ethical concerns underlying “first-come, first-served” distribution strategies. A series of model ethical principles are designed to guide ethical allocations of these...