- Burdensome though it is in other ways, HIPAA does not create a private right of action, so no big-ticket damage suits. Connecticut high court rides to rescue by creating new tort for breach of medical confidentiality [Steven Boranian, Drug and Device Law]
- Details of cases aside, once again, should federal law really be requiring healthcare employers to grant religious exemptions to staff unwilling to undergo flu vaccination? [Department of Justice press release on suit against Ozaukee County, Wisconsin; earlier on EEOC settlement against North Carolina hospital]
- First Amendment should come into play when FDA bans drug providers from making truthful statements about their therapies [Henry Miller and Gregory Conko, Reason] And a Cato panel discussion on FDA regulation of speech with former Vascular Solutions CEO Howard Root (author of “Cardiac Arrest”), Christina Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute, and Jessica Flanigan of the University of Richmond, moderated by Cato’s Michael Cannon;
- “Uberizing Nonemergency Medical Transportation” [Ann Marie Marciarille, Prawfsblawg]
- “Protecting Reasonable Physician Choice in Medical Product Cases” [Luther Munford, Drug and Device Law]
- Britain’s National Health Service lurches toward crisis in negligence payouts [BBC, Paul Goldsmith, Centre for Policy Studies]
Posts Tagged ‘medical malpractice’
Medical roundup
- “Survey: Most Docs Sued for Malpractice” [John Commins, Health Leader on Medscape survey] “The Missing Link in Lavern’s Law” (New York) [Peter A. Kolbert and Andrew S. Kaufman, New York Law Journal]
- Prescription spirits: why many physicians prospered so mightily during Prohibition [Paula Mejia, Atlas Obscura]
- Third Circuit greenlights consumer financial injury class action claiming eyedrop container dispenses eyedrops that are too big [Beck and McConnell on Alcon suit; see also earlier Posner on Allergan case]
- AI in health care, spot the legal issues: “For the First Time, a Robot Passed a Medical Licensing Exam” [in China; Dom Galeon, Futurism]
- “Why FDA regulations limiting e-cigarette marketing may cost lives and violate the Constitution” [Jonathan Adler; related, Jacob Sullum, earlier here, etc.] Anti-vaping crusade represents broader scandal of public health [John Tierney, City Journal]
- Off-label prescribing offers a window on a world with much less FDA regulation, and overall it’s an attractive one [Alex Tabarrok]
Medical roundup
- “Oral Contraceptives Should be Free (From the Third-Party Trap)” [Jeffrey Singer, Cato]
- Arbitrator awards $17.5 million after hospital fires neurosurgeon: in retaliation, or because he didn’t disclose problems with the law unrelated to practice? [Mike Baker, Seattle Times]
- Idea of empowering government to rewrite recipes for packaged food has gotten more traction in British public health sector than here [Sean Poulter, Daily Mail]
- Encyclopedia time: you can look up a variety of health topics in the now-online Encyclopedia of Libertarianism including Michael Cannon on health care generally, Gene Healy and Bruce Benson on illegal drugs, Jeffrey Schaler on psychiatry. And the Routledge Encyclopedia of Libertarianism includes Jessica Flanigan on libertarianism and medicine;
- If treatment deviating from the standard of care is the standard for malpractice, then some patients in pursuit of unconventional therapy choose it, and the law of waivers and of assumption of risk should respect their autonomy [Nadia Sawicki via TortsProf]
- About the Washington Post’s big opioid-legislation exposé, a few questions [Robert VerBruggen]
Medical roundup
- Bill advancing in California legislature would authorize jail for nursing home staff who “willfully and repeatedly fail to use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns” [Eugene Volokh, SB 219]
- “The FDA cannot get out of its own way on the issue of off-label communications.” [Stephen McConnell, Drug and Device Law Blog first and second posts]
- Public health covets territory of other studies and disciplines, part CLXXII [British Medical Journal on American College of Physicians’ resolution declaring “hate crimes” and “legislation with discriminatory intent” to be public health issues]
- Podcast on battle between Vascular Solutions and the FDA [Federalist Society with Howard Root and Devon Westhill]
- Policy U-turns needed: “Deregulation and Market Forces Can Lower Pharmaceutical Prices” [Marc Joffe, Reason]
- Florida Supreme Court ignored market history in striking down noneconomic damages limits in medical malpractice awards [Robert E. White, Jr., Insurance Journal and Andrew S. Bolin, WLF on North Broward Hospital District, et al v. Kalitan]
Family can’t sue doctors over loved one who turned down transfusions
Pennsylvania: “The family of a Jehovah’s Witness who died after repeatedly refusing blood transfusions can’t sue the hospital where doctors begged for a chance to save her life, a state appeals court ruled.” [Matt Miller, PennLive]
Medical roundup
- Protecting Access to Care Act: “House passes medical malpractice bill” [Kimberly Leonard/Washington Examiner, GovTrack, Todd Shryock/Medical Economics, my earlier]
- “FDA’s Gottlieb Hints at a Huge Overhaul of Health Tech Regulations” [Mike Riggs, Reason]
- “Law Review Article on Off-label is On Target” [Stephen McConnell, Drug & Device Law on Conners, “Illuminating the Off-label Fable: How Off-label Promotion May Actually Help Patients”]
- There’s a British website called Stop Suing the NHS, here is a sample post, and here is more about the writer, Susanne Cameron-Blackie;
- Another survey ranks New York worst state for doctors, trial lawyer supremacy in legislature a major reason [Thomas Stebbins, Gotham Gazette]
- Iowa law requires Certificate of Need for freestanding surgical centers. Sweet deal for exempt hospital competitors [Eric Boehm/Reason, Mike Rappaport/Law and Liberty]
Mello et al.: does state-level malpractice exposure correlate with health care quality?
Michelle Mello and colleagues examined reports in a federal health database to determine whether there were observable relationships between the intensity of litigation environments on a state level and measures of hospital outcomes. “No consistent association between malpractice environment and hospital process-of-care measures was found. … Overall, little evidence was found that greater malpractice risk improves adherence to recommended clinical standards of care, but some evidence was found that malpractice risk may encourage defensive medicine.” [Tim Allen, M.D. J.D.]
Medical roundup
- Whether or not California’s 1975 MICRA law limiting medical liability serves as a model for anything national, its results merit study by other states [H. Thomas Watson, Robert H. Wright, and S. Thomas Todd, WLF]
- No, Kaiser Health News and Scientific American, a 1-in-3 rate of post-marketing drug safety alerts does not prove FDA too lax [“Scott Alexander,” Slate Star Codex]
- Jim Hood Watch: “Mississippi AG, with the help of outside attorneys, sues pharma companies over allegedly unapproved drugs” [Jessica Karmasek, Legal Newsline]
- When deconstruction met evidence-based medicine and denunciations of “microfascism” ensued [Dave Holmes et al., International Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare, 2006 via Nicholas Christakis]
- Sen. Joe Manchin’s “approve one opioid, yank another from market” bill to tie FDA hands is a bad idea [Jeffrey Singer, Huffington Post]
- Death by a thousand clicks: what Boston doctors can’t stand about electronic medical records [John Levinson, Bruce Price and Vikas Saini, WBUR]
Medical roundup
- “Apple Watch can detect an early sign of heart disease…. Apple has been communicating privately with the FDA for years about medical devices and so far the FDA has taken a light touch to Apple but these issues are coming to a head.” [Tyler Cowen]
- “[Investor] lawsuits targeting life sciences firms jumped 70 percent from 2014, according to a survey provided earlier this year by Dechert.” [Amanda Bronstad, New York Law Journal]
- Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad signs medical malpractice reforms into law [Brianne Pfannenstiel, Des Moines Register]
- Summing up what is known re: talc and ovarian cancer as background to jury’s $105 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson [BBC (in story’s second half), earlier here, here, and here]
- $5,300 for an MRI that would cost Medicaid $500? Personal attendants for crash victims, even the ones well enough to participate in mixed martial arts? All part of Michigan no-fault crash system [Detroit Free Press investigative series, see yesterday’s post]
- Dear D.C.: ditch the FDA deeming regs and let vaping save smokers’ lives [Jeff Stier/Henry Miller, NRO, Tony Abboud/The Hill (vaping trade association), Juliet Eilperin/Washington Post (FDA temporarily suspends enforcement)]
Medical roundup
- Scott Gottlieb likely to steer FDA in right direction [Daniel Klein]
- Study of shorter versus longer medical consent forms “finds no significant difference in comprehension, satisfaction, enrollment” [Grady et al., PLOS via Michelle Meyer]
- C’mon, ACLU and Covington: “Lawsuit Aims to Force Catholic Hospitals Perform Transgender-Related Surgeries” [Scott Shackford]
- So much: “What The New York Times Gets Wrong On Vaping Regulation” [Sally Satel]
- “Should you be compensated for your medical waste, especially if it turns out to be valuable? The right answer is: no.” [Ronald Bailey, Reason on Henrietta Lacks story]
- Kimberly-Clark: we’ve sold 70 million MicroCool hospital gowns without a single complaint of injury from alleged permeability. Calif. jury: that’ll be $454 million [Insurance Journal]