Wendy E. Parmet

Shifting Vaccination Politics — The End of Personal-Belief Exemptions in California

A new California law ending religious and philosophical exemptions to vaccination requirements faces both legal and enforcement challenges. But other states will be watching closely to see whether it results in fewer vaccine-preventable illnesses.

Implications for tobacco control of the multistate tobacco settlement

The 1998 master settlement agreement between major tobacco manufacturers and the US states will have a profound effect on many tobacco industry practices and will significantly influence future settlements with the tobacco industry. This article analyzes the settlements key provisions pertaining to youth sales, advertising, marketing, and lobbying. It also examines the ways in which the settlement restricts industry practices as well as the many industry practices that remain unregulated.

Legal Rights and Communicable Disease: AIDS, the Police Power, and Individual Liberty

The policy debate over AIDS has focused on how to balance the rights of individuals who have the disease against the rights of the public. This paper examines the nature of both sets of rights by analyzing the development of public health law and its dominant visions today. The article argues that while once public health rights implied a vast reserve of community authority and obligation to prevent illness, today the rights of the public and those of individuals are seen as being in opposition. Public health jurisprudence now presupposes that illness is primarily a matter of individual concern. In this view, the science of medicine mediates the relationship between the individual and the public. This understanding of rights protects some of the interests of infected individuals, but is inadequate for addressing many of the major problems raised by the AIDS epidemic, particularly the spread of infection among the uninfected.

Pandemic Vaccines — The Legal Landscape

Pandemic Vaccines — The Legal Landscape Wendy Parmet writes that the recent H1N1 influenza vaccine program provides an important opportunity to assess the complex and perhaps paradoxical effects of vaccine laws during a pandemic.

After September 11: Rethinking Public Health Federalism

Several federalism doctrines developed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the last several years have cast doubt over the federal governments ability to be an active player in public health. In the wake of September 11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks, these doctrines may diminish in importance as the need for a strong federal response to bioterrorism becomes clear. Beyond this, public health protection requires a pragmatic, rather than doctrine-driven approach to federalism.

Holes in the Safety Net — Legal Immigrants' Access to Health Insurance

Current U.S. public policies that deny legal immigrants equal access to public insurance programs leave lawful U.S. residents and their health care providers unnecessarily vulnerable and perpetuate needless complexity in the health care system.

Discrimination and Disability: The Challenges of the ADA

Last July 26, amidst much fanfare, President Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (the “ADA”).’ The Act, which President Bush aptly called “the world’s first comprehensive declaration of equality for people with disabilities,”2 breaks new ground. Seeking to ensure the dignity and legal equality of an estimated 43 million disabled Americans,’ the Act is both broad and visionary. Regulating areas as diverse as transportation, employment, communications, health care and public accommodations, it suggests a new understanding on the part of Congress about the nature of discrimination. It also both answers and raises numerous questions about the role of law in the face of disease and disability.

Physicians, Firearms, and Free Speech — Overturning Florida’s Firearm-Safety Gag Rule

A U.S. appeals court has invalidated parts of Florida’s Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act and affirmed that the First Amendment applies to speech between physicians and patients, ensuring that doctors may continue making efforts to protect patients from gun-related injuries.

AIDS and the Limits of Discrimination Law

Throughout history, disease has been associated with bigotry and prejudice. Since biblical times the leper has been shunned and treated as an outcast.’ In the Middle Ages, the arrival of the plague brought with it violent social upheaval and persecution of the Jews.. In the earlier part of this century, prostitutes thought to have venereal disease were quarantined en masse.’ Given this sorrowful history, it is not surprising that the AIDS epidemic has brought with it mistreatment of persons associated with AIDS, the term I shall use for p m ple who either havc or are thought to have AIDS, AIDSrelated complex (ARC), or antibodies to the virus that causes the disease. Indeed, considering that AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease that has in this country primarily afflicted homosexual men and intravenous (IV) drug abusers, it is perhaps surprising that overt acts of prejudia havc not been more common. Nevertheless, they haw occurred. And their oc~vlmce raises profound questions about how society should treat thox assodated with the disease, and haw thcir rights and needs should be protected and balanced against the needs and fears of others. In the legal arena, these issues have been addressed as questions of discrimination, the body of law that deals with the differential treatment of groups or individuals. Thus to the lawyer, the pressing issue is whether our laws against discrimination prohibit the disadvantageous treatment of individuals associated with AIDS. Do these laws prevent an employer from firing someone with AIDS? Do they prohibit a school board from educating children with AIDS in a separate classroom? Indeed, do they teach us anything at all about how our society must and should treat those who are associated with the disease? Some lawyers argue that the existing laws against discrimination bar the disadvantageous treatment of persons associated with AIDS. As these advocates see it, individuals associated with AIDS arc discriminated against, or treated unequally, when opportunities afforded to others are denied to them because of their assoa’ation with the disease. These lawyers maintain that statutes designed to protect the rights of the disabled also prohibit udiscrimination” against individuals associated with AIDS.’ Not surprisingly, others have disagreed.’ The most important of the statutes protecting the rights of the disabled is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.6 Enacted as pan of a federal program financing vocational training for the handicapped, the statute states:

What Is a Public Health “Emergency”?

In March, Governor Deval Patrick declared the Massachusetts opioid-addiction epidemic a public health emergency, a move that allows governors and health officials to take extraordinary legal action. This unusual invocation of emergency powers raises important questions.