Singularity Health Law Blog

“DEATH PANELS” REDUX

CMS indicates that it is again considering compensating physicians for discussions and advice with patients concerning end of life decisions. The American Medical Association requested consideration of the issue last fall. 

DELAWARE PEDIATRICIAN CONVICTED OF WATER BOARDING CHILD.

In the “ I am not making this up” category, a Delaware Jury convicted Melvin Morse, M.D., a pediatrician and noted authority on childhood near death experiences of water boarding his 11 year old step daughter as a form of discipline and punishment. He was charged by authorities with endangerment and assault after the girl ran away from home and reported on Morse’s behavior. His lawyers argued that he was merely washing her hair in a manner that she didn’t like.

 

MANDELA: ARTIFACTS FROM 8115 VILAKAZI ST.

To my sorrow I never met Nelson Mandela, but in a visit to his modest home on Vilakazi Street in Soweto in the 1990s there were a number of artifacts remaining that voiced much about the man.  The one bedroom brick home was small with a brick wall between the kitchen in the rear and the living room in the front.  The living room was a dangerous place. One can still see the ridge of higher ground blocks away where state security service officers regularly fired high power rifles into their living room. (The outside bricks are still chipped from target practice.) The Mandelas were forced to sleep on the kitchen floor in the back of the house in order to assure that they would wake up in the morning.

 

ATTORNEY GENERAL WANTS TO FIX DRUG SENTENCING

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that he wants to change the mandatory sentencing guidelines adopted in the 1980s to restrict the discretion of trial judges in imposing lenient sentences on criminal offenders.  The United States has about 5 percent of the world’s population and about 25% of the world’s population that is behind bars, which is straining federal and state budgets and accomplishing very little other than warehousing for the non-violent offenders.

 

CALIFORNIA GAY CURE LAW GOES TO APPEALS COURT

Last year California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law California SB 1172, which makes it illegal to provide “conversion” or “reparative” therapy to homosexuals under the  age of 18 in the state. The issue is whether this an unremarkable and rational exercise of the police power of the state or an infringement of First Amendment rights.   Supporters of the bill assert that the “antigay” therapy is worthless pseudoscience and has the potential of harming young homosexuals who are struggling with identity and self worth issues.  They claim that homosexuality is not a disease or an assumed condition, but an intrinsic or genetic positioning on a natural scale of human sexuality.

 

WHEN WILL COMPUTERS THINK?

The Obama Administration recently announced the formation of the “Brain Activity Map Project” to be funded by the National Institutes of Health and other public and private foundations and organizations to undertake a ten year study of the human brain. The effort, which is similar to the organized effort to map the human genome is expected to cost at least 300 million dollars a year over the ten years. It is anticipated by scientists that it will be much for complex and difficult to undertake than the genome project. The hope is to develop a complete model of brain activity and the process of neuron firings that lead to cognition.

 

ARE GENE’S PATENTABLE?

The United States Supreme Court will decide the question of whether genes are patentable in the coming term. The decisions has broad implications for the biotechnology industry, for researchers and for patients.  The case at hand is Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. originally filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation.  The object of the case is to challenge a number of patents granted to Myriad, a Utah biotechnology company, by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patents granted were on DNA isolated from two human genes that increase the risk to women for breast and ovarian cancer.

 

“OFF LABEL” DRUG PROMOTION CONVICTION VIOLATES 1ST AMENDMENT

160 Common U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) approved drugs which are used for “off label” purposes represent approximately 21 percent of all prescriptions in the United states. Physicians may prescribe FDA approved drugs for any therapeutic use that is appropriate in their medical judgment. The FDA, however, prohibits pharmaceutical companies and their employees from promoting the use of FDA approved drugs for “off label” use. Although there is no express prohibition in the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act or its regulations prohibiting the promotion of drugs for off label use, the government uses a criminal statute which prohibits the introduction of “misbranded” drugs into interstate commerce ( 21 U.S.C. 331(a) and 333(a)(1) to prosecute pharmaceutical companies, their employees and sometimes physicians who are “promoting” the off-label use of drugs.

 

INDIAN CARDIOLOGISTS CAN PURSUE DISCRIMINATION CLAIM

 On November 30, 2012, Judge Greg Costa of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, on remand from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, allowed three Indian cardiologists to move forward with their discrimination claim against David P. Brown, the administrator of Citizen’s Medical Center, finding that under the McDonnell Douglas shifting burden framework, the plaintiff’s had met their burden of showing a prima facie case of discrimination through circumstantial evidence  on 4 out of 8 adverse employment actions alleged by the plaintiffs and that the justifications offered by the defendant were pre-textual.