By Elaine Marshall, Isabel Geisler, L. Virginia Martinez, Krystal Abbott, and Katherine Hazen Social drivers of health (SDOH), sometimes known as the social determinants of health, are factors in the social environment that shape individual and population health, including poverty, racism, housing, education, and employment. When judges decide cases that impact these social factors, their rulings can have important health implications. While cases impacting the SDOH can be landmark Supreme Court cases, such as the ruling on the CDC’s eviction moratorium during the COVID-19 pandemic, judges als ..read more

In February, the news broke that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved a “first of its kind” new cancer therapy. Iovance’s AMTAGVITM, the subject of the approval, is a personalized immunotherapy for advanced melanoma. To be treated, adult patients who are ineligible for surgery or have metastatic disease provide their tumor cells to their medical team. Tumor-attacking T-cells are isolated from the sample, grown and multiplied in-lab, and re-infused into the patients for a turbo-charged immune response that, according to clinical trial data, have shown promise in shrinking patient ..read more

Heightened Scrutiny of Your Royal Highness On Sunday, March 10, tabloids were in quite a frenzy when the British royal family published a photoshopped picture of Catherine, princess of Wales. The hubbub was extra hubbubbly, because this was the first official photo after the princess had abdominal surgery this past January. The order of events caused some people to speculate the edits indicated there was something to hide about the princess’s health status. Shortly after the public reaction, the princess issued an apology for the edits. Sadly, less than two weeks later, the rumors were co ..read more

      By Suzan Slijpen, Mauritz Kop & I. Glenn Cohen   1. Introduction: A Fragmented AI in Healthcare Regulatory Landscape In the past few years, we have witnessed a surge in artificial intelligence-related research and diagnostics in the medical field. It is possible that in some fields of medicine in the future AI tools used in diagnostics will generally perform far better than a human clinician. Prime examples of this can be found in radiology, particularly in the detection -and even the prediction- of malignant tumors. Although the actual development of a clinical ..read more

By Vincent Joralemon As therapies using drugs like MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD advance through the FDA research and approval pipeline, patients should be prepared for steep price tags attached to these procedures. For example, experts estimate MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD will cost upwards of $12,000 per patient. These high costs highlight the need for comprehensive insurance coverage because many of those experiencing symptoms of conditions like PTSD also frequently lack the resources to pay for such treatments. Looking at how the current system works, including presently available psychedeli ..read more

By Vincent Joralemon MDMA (also known as the club drug “molly” or “ecstasy”) is a Schedule I controlled substance — the most restrictive drug class with the most severe criminal consequences linked to it. But, perhaps not for long. A recent effort to get MDMA approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) means the drug may be rescheduled, which will lead to substantially decreased regulations attached to it. This provides a compelling model for efforts to decriminalize and destigmatize other substances moving forward. How Scheduling Works In ..read more

By Hannah Rahim In January 2024, Pope Francis called for a universal ban on surrogacy as a threat to global peace and human dignity, claiming that the practice is a “grave violation” of the mother and child’s dignity and based on the “exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs.” Surrogacy raises complex ethical and legal issues, particularly in cases of international surrogacy, where people seek surrogacy services from another country. There is currently no regulation of international surrogacy. Creating such regulation is important to allow appropriate access to surrogacy servi ..read more

By Sana S. Baban At present, there is a population of patients who would physiologically benefit from transplantation but are rejected based on pre-determined non-medical criteria: the presence of psychotic disorders. An upcoming opportunity for reform provides a chance to rectify this injustice. The existing organ allocation system has historically marginalized individuals diagnosed with psychotic or affective disorders, such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorders, and delusional disorders, labeling them as lower priority or altogether ineligible for transplantation. This exclusion is pr ..read more

By Joelle Boxer Late last year, Dr. Eunice Brookman-Amissah won the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” for her pioneering efforts to improve safe abortion access in sub-Saharan Africa. According to Dr. Brookman-Amissah, of the 36,000 deaths that occur globally due to unsafe abortion, almost 24,000 are in sub-Saharan Africa. “That was a totally unacceptable state of affairs,” she said, “given the fact that nobody, absolutely no woman has to die from a totally treatable and manageable cause.” Her advocacy work is credited with contributing to a 40% reduction in ..read more

By Adithi Iyer The idea of artificial intelligence is just seeping into our collective consciousness, but as we watch new developments in the space, the true “new kid on the block” may be a new type of infused human-technology intelligence — one derived from a blob of cells no larger than a grain of rice. These new units of computational prowess are brain organoids, grown in-lab and capable of producing very basic, but real-time, neurological activity. Brain organoids are a specific, and arguably the most interesting, subset of organoid models that are just beginning to enter legal debates. Th ..read more