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Check out our faculty’s comments in the media, op-eds and more.

Mar 24, 2024

After Court Upholds Brookline Ban, Other Towns Appear Poised to Adopt Generational Restrictions on Tobacco

Mark Gottlieb ’93, executive director of Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute, joined WBUR’s Radio Boston to discuss the town of Brookline’s first-in-the-nation tobacco ban and whether other municipalities may follow suit.
Mar 24, 2024

There’s Only One Syphilis Medication for Pregnant People. And the Supply Is Running Out. What Can the Government Do To Help?

Professor Brook Baker, senior policy analyst for HealthGAP, says the government has a role to play in solving the shortage of the only medication that can treat syphilis in pregnant people.
Mar 19, 2024

Federal Sports Betting Bill Is Introduced With Assist From Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute

With the support of Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute, new federal legislation to regulate sports betting as a public health issue has been proposed. The SAFE Bet Act will offer regulation to protect people in the U.S. from gambling-related harm in the new era of high-tech sports betting. Read more in Northeastern Global News!
Mar 11, 2024

Overdose or Poisoning? A New Debate Over What to Call a Drug Death.

“Language is really important because it shapes policy and other responses,” Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of The Action Lab at Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells The New York Times.
Mar 11, 2024

Brookline’s Historic Law to Phase Out All Tobacco Sales is Affirmed by the Massachusetts High Court

Kudos to Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) on successfully defending Brookline's Nicotine Free Generation (NFG) law to phase out tobacco sales! The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court gave the green light to the life-saving policy in a unanimous decision last week.
Mar 07, 2024

The Fight Over I.V.F. is Only Beginning

“They’ll say, ‘Life begins at fertilization,’ but that’s not really what it’s about,” Professor Katherine Kraschel tells The New Yorker. “It’s about constraining people’s decision-making once they have something in their body.”
Mar 07, 2024

Extension of COVID-19 Vaccine Waiver Uncertain After WTO Conference

“If the Pandemic Accord doesn’t include clear and comprehensive provisions allowing low- and middle–income countries to overcome Big Pharma’s monopoly control over supply, price, and distribution of vaccines, medicines, and diagnostics, we’ll see the savage inequity of COVID-19 and AIDS repeated in the next pandemic,” says Professor Brook Baker, senior policy analyst for HealthGAP.
Mar 06, 2024

Mifepristone Abortion Pills to Be Carried at CVS, Walgreens. Here’s What Could Happen Next

“If the Supreme Court upholds the lower court decision that said the FDA acted unlawfully, it would no longer be legal for mifepristone to be mailed or for retail pharmacies to dispense it," Professor Katherine Kraschel tells USA Today.
Mar 03, 2024

CVS and Walgreens to Start Selling Abortion Pills This Month

”The announcement by CVS and Walgreens offers the hope of expanded access to reproductive health care for patients in states that permit abortion. However, later this month, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a review of a decision by the Fifth Circuit that would dramatically restrict access to mifepristone," Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law tells CBS MoneyWatch. "If the Supreme Court upholds the lower court's order, the expanded access promised by today's order will be short-lived."
Mar 02, 2024

What Does Alabama's IVF Ruling Mean for Massachusetts?

Watch: On GBH’s Greater Boston, Professor Katherine Kraschel discusses the implications of the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos used for in-vitro fertilization are children.
Feb 29, 2024

The 19th Explains: Will States Follow Alabama in Ending IVF Access?

“People are wise to think carefully about the risks involved in keeping their embryos stored in abortion-restrictive states that either have personhood or are contemplating personhood,” Professor Katherine Kraschel tells The 19th News. “Like so many other things involving reproduction it’s a very personal choice, and they should talk to their providers about benefits and risks.”
Feb 29, 2024

‘I’m Living Proof of Why IVF Is So Necessary.’ Bills Aiming To Protect IVF Treatment Move Forward in Alabama Legislature

Until new legislation or policy is implemented in Alabama, many providers have their hands tied, Professor Katherine Kraschel tells CNN. The only thing we can say with certainty is that now (providers) have exorbitantly more civil liability than they did before this case. The rest is a big unknown abyss of liability.”
Feb 28, 2024

The Underutilization of Paxlovid

“We simply have to do more to overcome patent and trade secret barriers, to expand production, to lower prices, and to distribute global public goods equitably to all in need,” Professor Brook Baker tells NU Sci, Northeastern University's student-run science magazine.
Feb 26, 2024

Alabama Says Embryos in a Lab Are Children. What Are the Implications?

Is the Alabama embryonic personhood case headed to the U.S. Supreme Court? Professor Katherine Kraschel, an expert on reproductive law, comments for The New York Times.
Feb 21, 2024

Allyson Crays ’24 Awarded Maeve McKean Fellowship

Allyson Crays ’24 has been selected as a 2024 Maeve McKean Women’s Law and Public Policy–O’Neill Institute Fellow.
Feb 15, 2024

Pandemic Accord Hoax Highlights Blatant Hypocrisy of US and EU Approach to Big Pharma

“If the Pandemic Accord doesn’t include clear and comprehensive provisions allowing low- and middle–income countries to overcome Big Pharma’s monopoly control over supply, price, and distribution of vaccines, medicines, and diagnostics, we’ll see the savage inequity of COVID-19 and AIDS repeated in the next pandemic,” says Professor Brook Baker, senior policy analyst for Health GAP.
Feb 14, 2024

DNA Test Kit Horror Story

“It gives me great pause … to say we want the government to try to step in and regulate what amounts to a reproductive choice,” Professor Katherine Kraschel tells CNN Investigates.
Feb 13, 2024

Hospitals Deny Immunocompromised Patients’ ADA Requests For Masks

Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, comments for Forbes.
Feb 06, 2024

Sports Betting Boom Fuels Concerns Over Problem Gambling

On CBS’ 60 Minutes, professors Dick Daynard and Mark Gottlieb, president and executive director of Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI), respectively, and gambling addiction therapist Harry Levant, talk about the work they are doing to “wage war against mobile gambling addiction.”
Jan 31, 2024

WTO Appears Close To Rejecting a Proposed Waiver on Patents for COVID Diagnostics and Therapies

By pursuing a lengthy delay, the Biden administration robbed the WTO of the momentum needed for a vote Professor Brook Baker, a senior policy analyst for the HealthGAP advocacy group, tells STAT.
Jan 30, 2024

Narcan Saves Lives — But Finding It Can Be Onerous in Massachusetts

“The risk of overdosing is burden enough,” Professor Leo Beletsky tells The Boston Globe. “People looking for [Narcan] shouldn’t face the additional burden of having to ask five people to find a life-saving product.”
Jan 26, 2024

Should Doctors Who Are Public Officials Have the Right To Spread Medical Misinformation to the General Public?

Professors Claudia Haupt and Wendy Parmet say bad medical advice has proliferated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and physician officials who dispense it should face consequences.
Jan 16, 2024

South Africa, Colombia and Others Are Fighting Drugmakers Over Access to TB and HIV Drugs

Poorer countries are trying to become more self-reliant “because they’ve realized after COVID they can’t count on anyone else,” Professor Brook Baker, policy analyst for Health GAP, tells the Associated Press.
Jan 11, 2024

Will ‘Texas Tough’ Work in Fighting Fentanyl Fatalities?

The theory that arresting high-level dealers will prevent fatal drug overdoses “has never been [supported by] any kind of empirical evidence,” says Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of The Action Lab at the Center for Health Policy and Law.
Jan 05, 2024

Activists Take Aim at New Target: Childhood Vaccine Mandates

“The coronavirus pandemic, and in particular the arrival of Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court, brought a dramatic shift in public health jurisprudence — especially in cases involving religious liberty,” Professor Wendy Parmet tells The New York Times.
Jan 04, 2024

Abortion Pill Advance Orders Face Risky Future in Court Battle

Professor Wendy Parmet tells Bloomberg Law strict bans in conservative states have “provoked a kind of black market” around abortion drugs post-Dobbs. “The more you restrict lawful access, the more likely it is that people are going to rely on other sources, and that can be dangerous.”
Jan 02, 2024

Does the First Amendment Protect Doctors Who Spread COVID-19 Misinformation?

“It’s critical for physicians to speak outside of the doctor-patient relationship and convey information that may not yet be widely accepted but when they give bad information, and do so in a way that will live on their medical authority to do so, they should be subject to sanction,” Professor Wendy Parmet tells First Amendment Watch.
Jan 02, 2024

Is Spreading Medical Misinformation a Physician’s Free Speech Right? It’s Complicated

“On platforms like YouTube and TikTok, doctors basically are like any other person,” Professor Claudia Haupt tells the Association of American Medical Colleges. “The underlying principle is that it’s so important to a democracy not to allow the state to restrict free speech that it’s worth living with some terrible advice floating around.”
Dec 18, 2023

With DNA Testing and More Safeguards, Fertility Fraud Less Likely To Happen Today

”“Hyperregulating’’ to try to catch a few outliers could make [fertility] treatment even more costly and worsen disparities in access,” Professor Katherine Kraschel tells The Boston Globe.
Dec 17, 2023

A College Will Reopen the Site of a Campus Shooting. Some Aren’t Ready.

“The source of the right answer comes from the community you seek to support,” Sarah Peck '96, director of PHAI’s #UnitedOnGuns initiative, tells The Washington Post.
Dec 09, 2023

Targeting Online Gambling, Northeastern Lawyer Who Fought Big Tobacco Sues Draftkings

Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) has filed a class action in Massachusetts against DraftKings for deceptive marketing. “The problem we’re facing today and which we’ll be realizing over the next few years will be all the problems stemming from gambling addictions,” Professor Richard Daynard, president of PHAI, tells The Boston Globe.
Dec 08, 2023

Public Health Advocacy Institute Files Class Action Against Draftkings in Massachusetts

Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) and its Center for Public Health Litigation filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of Massachusetts citizens who opened DraftKings Sportsbook accounts in response to a $1,000 bonus sign-up promotion that the gambling company widely advertised.
Dec 08, 2023

PHAI Argues for Brookline Tobacco Ban at SJC 

Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) is representing the Town of Brookline in a case before the Mass. SJC challenging the town's first-in-the-nation bylaw that prohibits sales of tobacco or e-cigarettes to anyone born in the 21st century.
Dec 07, 2023

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Donates $1 Million to Salus Populi Judicial Education Program

Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law (CHPL), in collaboration with Northeastern University Bouvé College of Health Sciences’ Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research, has received $1 million from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to support and expand upon Salus Populi, the nation’s first education program for judges that provides critical information about the social determinants of health.
Dec 04, 2023

Greenhouse Calls Parmet’s Book “Provocative and Illuminating” in The New York Review

Congratulations to Professor Wendy Parmet, whose new book, Constitutional Contagion: Covid, the Courts, and Public Health, receives a glowing review by Linda Greenhouse in the Dec. 21, 2023, issue of The New York Review.
Nov 26, 2023

South Africa, Colombia and Others Are Fighting Drugmakers Over Access to TB and HIV Drugs

“Poorer countries are trying to become more self-reliant because they’ve realized after COVID they can’t count on anyone else,” says Professor Brook Baker ’76, policy analyst for Health GAP.
Nov 26, 2023

Brookline Banned Anyone Born This Century From Buying Tobacco in Town. The Rule Is ‘Clever,’ but Is It Legal?

Mark Gottlieb ’93, executive director of Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI), is representing the town of Brookline in a challenge to its tobacco-free generation law. “What the SJC does in this case may not have any impact on whether a policy may withstand a legal challenge in other states,” he tells The Boston Globe. “But it certainly would show it’s possible, given the right legal environment, to implement a policy that is truly an end-game policy for tobacco sales.”
Nov 10, 2023

Kraschel and Co-editors Examine Impact of COVID-19 on Law and Policy in New Book

Professor Katherine (Katie) Kraschel, an expert on the intersection of reproduction, gender, bioethics and health policy, is the co-editor of a newly published book, COVID-19 and the Law: Disruption, Impact and Legacy (Cambridge University Press, 2023). The collection of essays provides a critical reflection on what changes the pandemic has already introduced, and what its legacy may be.
Nov 06, 2023

Context Matters: Affirmative Action, Public Health, and the Use of Population-Level Data

In a co-authored piece for the Petrie-Flom Center’s Bill of Health blog, Professor Wendy Parmet, Alisa Lincoln and Elaine Marshall ’22 write about the Supreme Court’s ecological fallacy in disregarding robust population-level research in their decision on affirmative action.
Sep 29, 2023

The Abortion Myths Republicans Are Recycling to Reframe a Losing Issue

“‘Late-term abortion’ isn’t a thing,” Professor Katherine Kraschel tells The Guardian. “It’s a term created by people who oppose abortion to spread disinformation and shame people who have abortion. It has no basis in medicine or science.”
Sep 10, 2023

COVID-19 Lockdowns Returning? Here’s Why Public Health Experts Say That’s Unlikely

”It’s very misleading and frankly, it frightens a lot of people to talk about lockdowns,” Professor Wendy E. Parmet, director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells PolitiFact.
Sep 10, 2023

Health Activists Reveal Big Pharma’s COVID-19 Vaccine Heist in South Africa

“The most important lesson to be learned from the COVID-19 vaccine saga is the path not to take in addressing future pandemics,” says Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP. “Future responses should be driven by the dedication to people’s health, and not the protection of trade secrets and profits—a change that is still being fought out in global health.”
Aug 29, 2023

Northeastern Law Receives Top Rankings for Public Interest, Health Law and Human Rights

In recognition of its national leadership in preparing students for public interest lawyering, Northeastern University School of Law has been ranked No. 2 for public interest in the 2023 “back to school” issue of preLaw magazine. The magazine also awarded the school “A+” grades in health law and human rights.
Aug 25, 2023

Regulating Speech About a Drug’s Off-Label Uses

Professor David Simon’s new Emory Law Journal article, “Off-Label Speech,” has received a write-up in Penn State Law’s The Regulatory Review!
Aug 22, 2023

Northeastern Law’s Action Lab Files Federal Law Suit

In a novel lawsuit, Northeastern Law’s Action Lab at the Center for Health Policy and Law has filed a federal complaint in West Virginia to reinstate a prisoner’s life-saving medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD).
Aug 18, 2023

ViiV Healthcare and Doctors Without Borders Tussle Over Contract Terms for an HIV Drug

“Pharma price and purchase agreement secrecy has run amok,” Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP tells STAT. “We have mandatory price information on jars of peanut butter in the U.S. but a new shroud of secrecy over contracts worth tens of billions of dollar on life-saving vaccines and medicines. We need transparency, not monopoly-enhancing secrecy.”
Aug 10, 2023

Continue Successful Strategies at Mass. and Cass

In a letter to The Boston Globe, Amelia Caramadre ’21, legal fellow with the Action Lab at the Center for Health Policy and Law, calls for “a commitment to evidence-based public health approaches that center community treatment and housing.”
Aug 01, 2023

Professor Wendy Parmet Talks the Talk With Bill Newman ‘75

Professor Wendy Parmet recently joined Bill Newman ’75 on WHMP’s Talk the Talk, to discuss her new book, Constitutional Contagion: COVID, the Courts, and Public Health: “It’s really about how constitutional law has left us vulnerable to COVID, exasperated COVID and fails to appreciate how our fates are interconnected.”
Jul 28, 2023

Doctors Who Put Lives at Risk With COVID Misinformation Rarely Punished

“We allow the [medical] profession to police themselves,” Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells The Washington Post. “And when they fail to do that, even in the most egregious cases, what they are abetting is the erosion of trust and respect for doctors.”
Jul 14, 2023

Covid’s Remote Work Experience Is Slowly Changing Disability Law

Commenting for Bloomberg Law, Professor Wendy E. Parmet points out that recent federal court decisions on remote work as a disability accommodation may not show the full picture. ”The cases that make it to judicial decisions usually have the weakest claims. With the stronger cases, the employer and employee would probably reach some accommodation. Those would not be worth it for the employer to litigate.”
Jul 11, 2023

When Drug Busts Lead To More Overdoses We’re on the Wrong Path

“In our illicit drug policy, there are untested hypotheses that get accepted as gospel, and law enforcement and politicians often repeat those hypotheses,” Professor Leo Beletsky tells CommonWealth magazine. “Things like: If we crack down on drug dealers, that’s the way that we’re going to reduce overdose deaths.”
Jul 07, 2023

The Verdict Is In: Northeastern Program Helps Judges Better Understand the Forces That Affect People’s Health

A collaboration between Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law and the Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research at Northeastern University, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Salus Populi provides guidance and training to judges on the social determinants of health and their relationship to judicial decision-making.
Jun 23, 2023

Katherine Kraschel Appointed Chair of the Board of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England

Professor Katherine (Katie) Kraschel has been appointed chair of the board of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England (PPSNE), a non-profit organization that provides high quality health care, education and advocacy to advance equity and protect the fundamental right to sexual health and reproductive freedom for all.
Jun 01, 2023

In Constitutional Contagion: COVID, the Courts, and Public Health, Professor Wendy E. Parmet Argues Reform is Critical Before the Next Pandemic Strikes 

Constitutional law has helped make Americans unhealthy, argues public health law expert Professor Wendy E. Parmet in her new book, Constitutional Contagion: COVID, the Courts, and Public Health(Cambridge University Press, 2023).
May 25, 2023

Ads for Sports Betting Have Been More Effective Than the Original Cigarette Campaigns, Northeastern Expert Says

Professor Richard Daynard, president of Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute, says the nascent marketing for sports betting has been more effective than the early campaigns for cigarette smoking.
May 25, 2023

Scientists Near a Breakthrough That Could Revolutionize Human Reproduction

Listen back: Professor Katie Kraschel, an expert on the intersection of reproduction, gender, bioethics and health policy, was interviewed by NPR’s Morning Edition for a segment on in vitro gametogenesis (IVG).
May 19, 2023

Medical Countermeasures Platform will be Pitched to Countries Next Week. Inadequate Consultations, Squeamish about IP, Activists Say

"We need a working mechanism to ensure equitable access in future health emergencies," Professor Brook BakerProfessor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells the Geneva Health Files.
May 14, 2023

A Teen Girl Is Facing Murder Charges After Two Of Her Classmates Died of Overdoses

“Behind the smokescreen of ‘holding someone accountable,’ prosecutors are increasingly manufacturing such homicide charges against friends, family members, and partners of people who die of accidental overdoses,” Professor Leo Beletsky tells VICE.“This does nothing to prevent future deaths, while sending a powerful signal that discourages people from seeking help.”
May 08, 2023

Indonesia Should Reject New IP Monopoly Protections for Medicines

“The status quo of rich countries imposing ever increasing monopoly protections to benefit the market control and profiteering of their transnational pharmaceutical giants must end,” writes Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for HealthGAP, in an opinion piece for The Jakarta Post.
May 01, 2023

Staff Spotlight: Ellen Lawton, Pioneer of Medical-Legal Partnership

“There should be a lawyer, a legal aid lawyer, in every single clinic in the country. You don’t have to call them a legal aid lawyer. You can call them a problem solver,” says Ellen Lawton '93, a senior fellow at HealthBegins and a national expert in the integration of legal professionals into the healthcare setting to address the social determinants of health,
May 01, 2023

Expert Calls for Reforms to Address the Overdose Crisis

Mass General Brigham cites Professor Leo Beletsky's research in a blog for News Wise.
Apr 22, 2023

Supreme Court’s Abortion Pill Call Leaves FDA in Line of Fire

Professor Wendy Parmet discusses the Supreme Court's decision to block a Texas judge's restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone from taking effect. “What they’re saying is, we’re not going to take this drug off the market” at least until hearing the case on the merits, Parmet said in Bloomberg Law.
Apr 21, 2023

Billerica Officer Hospitalized After Fentanyl Exposure – But Experts Say It Probably Wasn't an Overdose

”The more rumors and myths there are out there about fentanyl exposure causing overdose in these kinds of casual encounters, the more stressed out and anxious our first responders are,” Professor Leo Beletsky tells NBC Boston. ”I think it's really unfortunate that instead of correcting these myths, a lot of media outlets and a lot of law enforcement agencies have instead proliferated it.”
Apr 20, 2023

Don’t Curb Opioid Prescriptions Through Telemedicine. They’re Saving Lives

“Who gets access to medication should not come down to geography, identity or wealth, nor should government proposals compound existing disadvantages,” writes Professor Leo Beletsky in a co-authored op-ed for the Los Angeles Times.
Apr 18, 2023

Experts Weigh in on Alberta Considering Involuntary Treatment

“The U.S. tends to export some of the worst things that we kind of innovate and involuntary treatment does seem like one of those unfortunate exports,” Professor Beletsky tells The Globe and Mail “This is essentially incarceration rebranded.”
Apr 15, 2023

Professor Brook Baker Calls for Transparency in Pandemic Accord Talks

Professor Brook Baker comments on the negotiation process of a global pandemic preparedness World Health Organization (WHO) agreement. "The key question here is whether all members of the global society should have clear insight and input into such a consequential document", Baker told The Lancet.
Apr 14, 2023

Abortion Pill Order Threatens FDA’s Power Over Drug Safety

Professor Wendy Parmet comments on a federal appeals court's decision to overturn the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of the drug mifepristone used in medication abortions. “This is not a decision that seems to have very much respect for either the FDA’s expertise or the scientific evidence,” says Parmet in Bloomberg Law.
Apr 10, 2023

Should Biden Ignore a Texas Judge’s Ruling on the Abortion Pill?

Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law, and Professor Martha Davis, co-director of the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy, comment on a Texas federal judges' decision to reverse the Food and Drug Administration’s decades long approval of mifepristone—a pill used in abortions and to manage miscarriages—in Northeastern Global News.
Apr 03, 2023

European Union Drug Pricing Proposal for the Pandemic Treaty Generates Pushback

Professor Brook Baker comments on the pharmaceutical industry's arbitrary approach to provide medicines to poor and middle-income countries, because it can lead to higher prices and fails to address calls for technology transfers. “What people have been asking for is technology sharing and licensing rights to expand manufacturing capacity” said Baker in STAT News, “This (proposal) is pretty much leaving company intellectual property alone and relying on voluntary measures.”
Mar 31, 2023

Obamacare Court Decision Hits Hardest for Low-Income Americans

“It’s another example of courts not caring about the impact of their decisions on the health of Americans,” said Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law, over a federal judge’s decision to strike down requirements in the Affordable Care Act, in Bloomberg Law. The decision could reduce access to life-saving preventative treatments for low-income Americans.
Mar 28, 2023

Haupts’ “AI-generated Medical Advice—GPT and Beyond” Published in JAMA

Professor Claudia Haupts’ latest article with Mason Marks, MD, JD, is “AI-generated Medical Advice—GPT and Beyond,” published in JAMA. The article surveys the medical applications of a generative pretrained transformer (GPT) and considers whether new forms of regulation are necessary to minimize safety and legal risks to patients and clinicians.
Mar 17, 2023

Desantis Is Championing Medical Freedom. GOP State Lawmakers Like What They See.

Professor Wendy Parmet comments on the "precarious game" of limiting public health officials' power to impose measures to protect public health, “You want to say the health department can’t close schools, but what if the next pandemic has a 50 percent fatality rate for kids, but adults are fine?” in Politico.
Mar 16, 2023

From Business as Usual to Health for the Future

Professor Brook Baker co-wrote an article, “From Business as Usual to Health for the Future: Challenging the Intellectual Property Regime to Address COVID-19 and Future Pandemics,” on the legal, political, and commercial obstacles that bar low- and middle-income countries from getting access to the pharmaceutical products needed to protect their populations during a pandemic.
Mar 14, 2023

Abortion Pill Court Docket Delay Concerns Legal Advocates

Professor Wendy Parmet mentions the lack of transparency in the judicial process over an abortion case in Texas, “To do it in a way that has the effect of being undercover and not allowing both legitimate and lawful protests outside and also making it harder for the media to get there, it threatens further loss of trust,” in Bloomberg Law.
Mar 12, 2023

What if the Next Pandemic Happened Tomorrow?

"In an ideal world, governments could counter the problem of low vaccination rates by increasing public awareness of the benefits and safety of vaccines and ensuring that vaccines are easily accessible," said Professor Wendy Parmet in an opinion series by The New York Times on how best to prepare for future outbreaks.
Mar 10, 2023

Clinicians in Government

Professor Wendy Parmet and Professor Claudia Haupt contributed to the AMA Journal of Ethics March 2023 issue, "Clinicians in Government." The issue makes the case that clinicians serving in federal or state government in the United States are accountable to patients, the public, and their professions in ways that transcend clinicians’ typical duties.
Mar 08, 2023

Conservative COVID Backlash Handcuffs Public Health, Pandemic

"The rulings have substantially chipped away at the legal standing of health agencies and officials to protect the public, said Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law, about lawsuits fueled by conservative covid backlash mentioned in the The Washington Post.
Mar 02, 2023

Abortion Pill, Vaccine Attacks Spell Trouble for FDA Approvals

“If you begin to relax regulatory standards, it causes people to think, this is too fast, we don’t know what the long term effects are,” Professor Brook Baker said in Bloomberg Law, on growing distrust in the Food and Drug Administration processes.
Feb 14, 2023

Abortion Lawsuits Place Federal Drug Authority in the Crosshairs

“If a court enjoins the FDA’s licensing, blocks the FDA’s licensing of mifepristone, and it suddenly becomes an unlicensed medication, then the whole argument that FDA approval preempts state law disappears, because the FDA in effect has no longer approved the [drug] because the court has in a sense rescinded the approval,” said Professor Wendy Parmet in the National Journal.
Feb 13, 2023

Reclaiming Salus Populi

"If health equity is to be achieved, those with influence within the legal system must understand how their actions affect health," writes Professor Wendy Parmet, Northeastern Law's Director of the Center for Health Policy and Law, and Elaine Marshall, Postdoctoral Research Fellow for Salus Populi, in this Bill of Health blog.
Jan 24, 2023

Biden Toughens Abortion Rights Support, but Access Falls Short

Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law Director Wendy Parmet said, “Unless and until some courts rule that federal law preempts state bans on using medication abortions to stop pregnancies, providers are apt to remain wary of administering medication abortion,” in Bloomberg Law.
Jan 06, 2023

The Pandemic Exposed Global Gaps in Access to Medicines. Can a Contentious Approach to Close Them Gain Traction?

“We're stuck in a rut. Voluntary licensing is only a partial solution to wider access,” Brook Baker, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells STAT.
Jan 06, 2023

Amid Rising Covid Fears, Wait For Patent Waiver On Meds Continues

“A partial patent waiver that frees generics companies to supply countries that cannot afford pharma-excessive ‘tiered prices’ is of utmost importance,” Professor Brook Baker, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells TIMES Special.
Dec 22, 2022

Q&A: Jonathan Kahn on New Frontiers in Racial Profiling

In an interview with Undark magazine, Professor Jonathan Kahn, a leading authority on biotechnology’s implications for our ideas of identity, rights and citizenship, discusses the use of forensic DNA phenotyping.
Dec 16, 2022

Amid Criticism Over Unaffordable Insulin, Lilly Strikes a Manufacturing Deal to Supply Africa

Eli Lilly’s manufacturing agreement aimed at boosting insulin access in Africa is “largely a symbolic drop in the bucket,” Professor Brook Baker, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells STAT.
Nov 21, 2022

Biden Extends Covid Public Health Emergency While States Move On

“We’re already seeing obviously tremendous strain on the healthcare system right now,” Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law tells News@Northeastern . “We seem to be at the cusp of what might be the tripledemic.”
Nov 13, 2022

The Global Economics Behind America's Fentanyl Problem

“The current fentanyl situation is really a product of misguided drug policy and its enforcement,” Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Health in Justice Action Lab, tells Quartz.
Nov 04, 2022

Seeking Psychedelics? Check the Data Privacy Clause

The risks of sending psilocybin client data to the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) “outweigh the potential remote benefits,” Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Health in Justice Action Lab, tells Wired.
Oct 25, 2022

Boston Officials Visit Jail as They Seek Options to House People at ’Mass. And Cass’

“Massachusetts already has one of the most highly utilized involuntary commitment systems in the entire country,” Professor Leo Beletsky tells WBUR. “Thousands of people are involuntarily committed every year and those people by and large are worse off when they come out than when they went in.”
Oct 24, 2022

Experts: George Floyd Died From Knee to Neck, Not Drug Overdose

“The physical responses that [George Floyd] was having were much more consistent with trauma than an overdose,” Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Health in Justice Action Lab, tells the Associated Press.
Oct 21, 2022

Fights between U.S. States and the National Government Are Endangering Public Health

”In today’s increasingly polarized political environment, legal doctrines that once supported the states’ ability to protect the health of their residents are diminishing the capacity of both our national and local governments to do so,” writes Professor Wendy Parmet in an op-ed for Scientific American. “Unless the courts stop enabling this political weaponization of federalism, our federalism will remain uncooperative. And deadly.”
Oct 06, 2022

Will We Be Able to Count Abortions After the DobbsDecision

“Whenever you’re dealing with something that is highly stigmatized and the threat of legal enforcement hovers over, it’s very challenging,” Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells News@Northeastern. “The greater the perceived threat, and the greater the stigma, the harder it is to get the data.”
Sep 30, 2022

Towns Are Going After Syringe Services. The A.D.A. May Be Their Best Defense.

“The fight against zoning laws represents a larger fight against stigma directed towards people who use drugs,” writes Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Health in Justice Action Lab, in a co-authored op-ed for Harvard Public Health.
Sep 29, 2022

Tweaks to Bill | Vaccine Mandate Update

The major questions doctrine has gone from something the Supreme Court used once every five years to a “Swiss Army knife” for courts to limit agency power, Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells Bloomberg Law.
Sep 15, 2022

Northeastern Law Announces 10 New Faculty Fellowships

In support of its public interest mission, Northeastern University School of Law is pleased to announce that its Centers of Excellence have selected 10 outstanding faculty members as 2022-2023 Faculty Fellows.
Sep 09, 2022

Biden’s Omicron Booster Campaign Faces Fatigue, Efficacy Doubts

“It would be an extraordinary failure of public policy for Congress not to reauthorize funding to extend government supported access to vaccines, boosters, tests, and therapeutics,” Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells Bloomberg Law.
Aug 17, 2022

Reflections on the U.S. CERD Review, 2022

For those who attended the UN’s periodic review of U.S. compliance with its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racism (CERD) last week, “Geneva was a place for imagining an America where human rights and racial justice are firmly enshrined and respected,” writes Professor Martha Davis in a blog for Human Rights at Home.
Aug 17, 2022

Mehreen Butt Joins Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law as Managing Director

Mehreen Butt has joined Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law as managing director. A public policy attorney with more than 15 years of experience working in the social justice and public policy fields and on local, state and federal campaigns, Butt is knowledgeable in healthcare, poverty, sexual and reproductive rights, and immigrant and voting reform.
Aug 15, 2022

Most Abortions Are Done at Home. Antiabortion Groups Are Taking Aim.

“So many states in the abortion arena have been playing with misinformation like this, relying on the antiabortion movement instead of medical professionals and what the science shows,” Professor Wendy Parmet, co-director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law tells The Washington Post. “Some states have required physicians say it causes breast cancer — which is also false.”
Aug 03, 2022

Northeastern Law Magazine: Summer 2022 Issue

“Shooting Pains,” “Rethinking Business As Usual,” “Active Duty” and many more stories await readers in the summer 2022 issue of Northeastern Law magazine. Read it online now!
Aug 03, 2022

Drug-induced Homicide Should Not Result in Prison Time for Those Who Call For Help

“DIH statutes force people into the unimaginable situation of deciding whether to call for help and risk prosecution for homicide or allow their friend or loved one to die of an overdose," writes Professor Leo Beletsky in a co-authored op-ed for USA Today.
Jul 22, 2022

Georgia’s Heartbeat Abortion Ban Tests FDA Limits on Pill Access

“We are at the first stage of a tsunami of litigation,” Professor Wendy Parmet tells Bloomberg Law as Georgia's abortion law adds to an ongoing fight over the boundaries between states and the federal government.
Jul 20, 2022

Pharma and Patient Advocates Offer Competing Visions for Achieving Vaccine Equity During Pandemics

“Big Pharma’s unwillingness to acknowledge that the existing IP regime did not just enable innovation — it also produced artificially restricted supplies, price profiteering, and grossly inequitable distribution first of vaccines and tests and now of Covid medicines as well,” Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells STAT.
Jul 19, 2022

New Article by Professor Jonathan Kahn: “Diversity’s Pandemic Distractions”

In “Diversity’s Pandemic Distractions,” 32 Health Matrix 149 (2022), Professor Jonathan Kahn argues that an uncritical embrace of the idea of diversity in analyzing and responding to emergent health crises has the potential to distract us from considering deeper historical and structural formations contributing to racial health disparities.
Jul 13, 2022

'Whose God Wins?’ Florida Lawsuit Exposes Supreme Court’s Religious Hypocrisy, Northeastern Professors Say

“Since Roberts became chief justice, almost all of the decisions are issued on behalf of Catholics or Evangelicals,” Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law, tells News@Northeastern.
Jul 06, 2022

Restrictions on Contraception Could Set Women Back Generations

“I don’t think whatever gains women have made in the workplace and in political representation are guaranteed,” Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells The New Yorker. ”If the Court moved us back to the nineteen-fifties in terms of access to contraception and abortion, well then, I think we would have some of the same social and economic consequences we had then.”
Jul 04, 2022

‘A Slippery Slope’: Pfizer Sells a Contraceptive and Donated To Political Groups That Could Come After the Company

”This decision has opened up uncertainty and could well mean that companies have shot themselves in the foot,“ Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells STAT.
Jun 26, 2022

Chasm Opens Between States Over Abortion Pills and Out-of-State Care

“We haven’t seen this kind of battle about … the reach of the jurisdiction of one state over another in a very long time,” Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells The Washington Post . “Nothing of this magnitude have we seen since the Civil War.”
Jun 25, 2022

Garland Signals Brewing Battle With GOP-Led States Over Access to Abortion Pills

Professor Wendy Parmet tells NBC News it’s unclear whether the FDA can preempt a state’s prohibition on mifepristone: “We don’t have a Supreme Court decision on [this] point, and even if we did, we have a Supreme Court willing to overturn decisions.”
Jun 24, 2022

The Spectacular Failure of the WTO To Fight COVID

“The whole world is better off if we all have green technology,” Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells In These Times. “If rich countries get to control green technology to prioritize their use in high-income countries, that’s good for their profits, but it’s not good for the world.”
Jun 14, 2022

Time to Walk Away from the WTO Proposed Text

”The hegemony of Big Pharma itself must be challenged,” writes Professor Brook Baker in his latest Health GAP blog. ”How much pandemic profiteering can we collectively endure?”
Jun 13, 2022

As Biden Administration Fights Opioid Overdoses, Harm Reduction Groups Face Opposition

“These [harm reduction] programs are still running on a shoestring,” Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Health in Justice Action Lab, tells USA Today “That is not how public health is supposed to be done.”
May 30, 2022

More Collar Counties Charge Dealers With Drug-induced Homicide for Drug Overdose Deaths

"If you are responding to overdoses with drug induced homicide prosecutions, you're part of the problem, you're not part of the solution," Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Health in Justice Action Lab, tells ABC 7 Chicago.
May 26, 2022

Abortion Pill Lawsuit Offers Guide to Challenging State Limits

“A high court decision handing the authority to regulate abortion back to the states would only exacerbate existing interstate divisions,” Professor Wendy Parmet tells Bloomberg Law. “You’re creating a potential interstate powder keg.”
May 25, 2022

‘It’s Not Working Fast Enough.’ Heartbreak, Drugs, and Crime Persist at Mass. And Cass, Leaving Neighbors Asking, ‘What’s Next?’

Professor Leo Beletsky tells The Boston Globe that the removal of tents and the recent shuttering of an engagement center were “wrong-headed initiatives that leaned too heavily on law enforcement to simply sweep the problems of Mass. and Cass under the proverbial rug.”
May 24, 2022

Salus Populi Judicial Education Program Expands with Additional Funding

The Center for Health Policy and Law (CHPL), in collaboration with the Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research, has received two additional two years of funding (2022-2024) to support and expand upon Salus Populi, the nation’s first education program for judges that provides critical information about the social determinants of health.
May 23, 2022

Vague ‘Medical Emergency’ Exceptions in Abortion Laws Leave Pregnant People in Danger, Doctors Say

Professor Wendy Parmet tells STAT News that the political environment today is more hostile toward abortion than in earlier decades: “Even pre-Roe, law enforcement was unlikely to intervene if a hospital committee said an abortion was performed for a patient’s health.”
May 23, 2022

‘Stay in the Race.’ The Honorable Victoria Roberts ’76 Inspires Northeastern Law Graduates To Pursue Justice

The Honorable Victoria Roberts ’76 delivered a rousing commencement speech at Friday’s ceremony and urged the class of 2022 not to let “the challenges of practicing law ever defeat you.”
May 18, 2022

The Antiscience Supreme Court is Hurting the Health of Americans

"Today’s conservative jurists have adopted the anti-expertise, populist stance of the larger conservative movement and are far less inclined than conservative judges in the past to prioritize health or value expertise," writes Professor Wendy Parmet in an op-ed for Scientific American.
May 16, 2022

Abortion Foes Push to Narrow ‘Life of Mother’ Exceptions

“If there is no legalized way of abortion in these cases, many women are going to face very significant health problems and be desperate,” Professor Wendy Parmet tells The Washington Post. “And doctors are going to be put in untenable and unethical situations.”
May 16, 2022

As Poor Nations Seek Covid Pills, Officials Fear Repeat of AIDS Crisis

“Both Merck and Pfizer have reserved for themselves all the high-income countries and virtually all of the upper-middle-income countries and even some lower-middle-income countries,” Professor Brook Baker ’76, policy analyst for Health GAP, tells The New York Times. Professor Baker recently submitted a legal brief in support of the Dominican Republic’s petition to allow the distribution of the generic version of Paxlovid.
May 12, 2022

Who Should Decide the Nation’s Pandemic Response?

“The questions raised by the mask mandate cases, as with so many other Covid-19 cases, is not which policy is correct. It’s who should answer that question? Judges or health officials?,” writes Professor Wendy Parmet in an opinion piece for Bloomberg Law.
May 12, 2022

‘It’s a Tsunami’: Legal Challenges Threatening Public Health Policy

“Judicial review is an important deterrent against overreach and abuse,” Professor Wendy Parmet tells Politico.
May 09, 2022

Baker Contributes to Complaint Citing International Human Rights Law Violations in COVID Vaccine and Medicines Distribution

Professor Brook Baker ’76 is among the members of an international coalition of human rights groups, public health experts and civil society organizations that submitted inputs and submitted a petition to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) arguing that Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) are in violation of international human rights law by failing to intervene on inequitable and racially discriminatory rollout of COVID vaccines and other healthcare technologies.
May 06, 2022

Post-Roe, Could States Outlaw Abortion Pills?

Abortion medications are available by mail and offer an FDA-approved option for those hoping to terminate an early pregnancy. If Roe is overturned, could the pills be criminalized? Professor Wendy Parmet weighs in.
May 04, 2022

Contraception Could Come Under Fire Next if Roe v Wade is Overturned

“There are a lot of decisions that follow from the idea of a constitutional right to privacy,” Professor Wendy Parmet tells The Guardian. “Once you throw down the best-known decision in that category of cases, every single other case is now up for grabs.”
May 03, 2022

Paxlovid’s Slow, Targeted Rollout Leaves Vulnerable Populations at Risk

Professor Brook Baker ’76 welcomes the Biden administration’s plans to expand access to Paxlovid, the first medication developed to treat COVID-19. However, “that still leaves a lot of people uncovered who aren’t near those kinds of facilities,” he says.
Apr 29, 2022

Commencement 2022

Members of the class of 2022 will receive their degrees during the School of Law’s commencement ceremony in Matthews Arena on Friday, May 20. For those who are unable to attend #NUSL2022, the School of Law is pleased to offer a live video stream of the ceremony.
Apr 29, 2022

Pfizer Allegedly Pressured UNICEF to Keep Secret, Pricing for Anti-Viral Treatment Paxlovid. UNICEF Yielded.

Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells Geneva Health Filesthat a negative precedent is being set with respect to transparency for public resources spent in procuring COVID-19 therapeutics: “Not only has the world allowed biopharmaceutical companies to maintain monopoly control over the supply, price, and distribution of COVID-19 countermeasures, it has also consistently allowed them to achieve their profiteering under a veil of secrecy.”
Apr 20, 2022

Drug-Induced Panic

"Overdose mortalities and related harms require a public health response, not more criminalization and incarceration," writes Professor Leo Beletsky in a co-authored piece for Inquest.
Apr 20, 2022

Covid Travel Mask Ruling Threatens to Tie CDC’s Hands on Future Pandemics

“This decision ties the CDC’s hands at a time when we still do not know what the next few months will bring in terms of the pandemic and new strains,” Professor Wendy Parmet tells The Financial Times. “It is really important the administration pushes back.”
Apr 20, 2022

DOJ to Appeal Travel Mask Mandate Ruling After CDC Says Masks Still Needed on Public Transportation

Professor Wendy Parmet comments for Politico on the travel mask ruling: “It’s about who makes our public health policy. The judiciary – a 35-year-old unelected judge – or the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services?”
Apr 11, 2022

While We Line Up for a Fourth Shot, the World’s Poor Haven’t Gotten Their First 

“People in the U.S. have no greater right to health than people elsewhere in the world,” Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells the Los Angeles Times. “We’re all human. Health is a positive good for everyone. Yet we’re living under a monopoly-based system where giant pharmaceutical corporations make billions in profits at the expense of poor people in poor countries who are denied access to life-saving medicines.”
Apr 06, 2022

How President Biden Can Expand Global COVID-19 Test-To-Treat

In a piece for Health Affairs, Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, and his co-authors recommend a number of concrete steps for policy makers to take “to ameliorate testing and treatment disparities in the short term and build toward a more equitable global response in the medium to long term.”
Mar 30, 2022

Rich Countries are Getting the New COVID Vaccine First

“The bottom line is that there are still a lot of unvaccinated people in poor countries and once again, they are at the back of the line,” Professor Brook Baker '76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells Salon.
Mar 28, 2022

Scientists Object to Inclusion in Globe’s Philip Morris Ad

The Globe certainly should know what’s going on here, though Philip Morris is paying them good money to keep their gaze averted,” says Professor Richard Daynard, president of Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute.
Mar 18, 2022

HIV Outbreak Among Drug Users Accelerates in Boston

Diffusing the concentration of homeless can make “it seem like things are better, but it further marginalizes and makes it harder for them to access services,” Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Health in Justice Action Lab, tells The Boston Globe. “Such a move can also lead to upticks in overdoses and HIV infections.”
Mar 17, 2022

New "Compromise" on an IP Waiver for Covid Vaccines Is Worse Than No Deal, Activists Say

“Even if vaccines were the only consideration, overriding patents alone is not enough,” Professor Brook Baker, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells In These Times magazine.
Mar 07, 2022

Covid-19 Misinformation Tests Doctors’ Free Speech Rights

“The First Amendment assumes an equality between speakers that really doesn’t reflect the reality that exists between doctors and patients concerning medical matters, and doesn’t protect the interests of laypeople in getting sound information,” Professor Claudia Haupt tells Bloomberg News.
Mar 07, 2022

Covid Pill Prescriber Rules Limit Reach of ‘Test to Treat’ Plan

“There are people who simply do not have connection to health services, for many reasons, mainly poverty related, but also some historic mistreatment and distrust,” Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP tells Bloomberg Law. “Extra work has to be done to overcome that history of inferior service and inferior service access.”
Mar 04, 2022

COVID Revealed the Fragility of American Public Health

What happens when a deadly virus hits a vulnerable society? Professor Wendy Parmet writes about the fragility of American public health in the March issue of Scientific American.
Mar 04, 2022

Ukraine-Russia War Threatens to Stymie COVID Vaccination Efforts

“There are not yet good systems for providing vaccines in humanitarian and conflict situations,” Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells Bloomberg Law. “The influx of large populations living in crowded conditions will result in increased transmission but little protection.”
Feb 25, 2022

Transgender Kids Care Law Tests Arkansas Doctors’ Speech Rights

Professor Claudia Haupt talked to Bloomberg Law about professional knowledge and state regulation of medical practice: “The real problem arises when the state tries to regulate something as a practice of medicine in a way that contradicts medical insights.”
Feb 25, 2022

The Global COVID-19 Treatment Divide

“We are now seeing a resurgent wave of therapeutics nationalism just as pernicious as vaccine nationalism,” Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP tells The Lancet.
Feb 18, 2022

Pfizer Criticized Over Patent Strategy for COVID-19 Pill, Despite a Deal To Broaden Access in Poor Countries

“Pfizer has attempted to paint a positive picture of its MPP license despite its many restrictions,” Professor Brook Baker '76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells STAT. “It doesn’t advertise that it has reserved 46% of the world’s population – people from high- and upper-middle-income countries – for its exclusive sales.”
Feb 18, 2022

Can States Preserve Access to Abortion if Roe v. Wade is Overturned?

More state legislatures are mobilizing in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s decision on an abortion ban in Mississippi, which directly threatens the rights spelled out in Roe v. Wade. Professors Martha Davis and Jeremy Paul weigh in on the latest effort in Vermont.
Feb 07, 2022

Prosecutors Are Going After Michael K. Williams’ Alleged Dealer Using An Increasingly Common — And Controversial — Charge

“Williams’ death is being commemorated by ratcheting up and feeding the war on drugs and deploying these failed approaches,” Professor Leo Beletsky, director of Northeastern Law’s Health In Justice Action Lab tells the Gothamist. “And it's a travesty. It's a desecration of his life and career.”
Jan 27, 2022

Biden’s Workplace Vaccine Rules Hit Republican Judge Blockade

“We’re putting our heads in the sand if we ignore the way partisanship has come to impact how judges see issues,” Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law, tells Bloomberg Law
Jan 21, 2022

The US Supreme Court’s Rulings on Large Business and Health Care Worker Vaccine Mandates

Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, has teamed up with Professor Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown, and Professor Sara Rosenbaum of GWLaw to co-author a JAMA Viewpoint piece on the ramifications of the US Supreme Court’s Ruling on Vaccine Mandates.
Jan 11, 2022

Parolees With Opioid Addiction Need Choices, Not a Naltrexone-Only Policy

Amelia Caramadre ’21, a legal fellow with Northeastern Law’s Health in Justice in Action Lab, talks to Filter magazine about the work the lab is doing “to end the practice of preferentially prescribing parolees any one drug over another, and mandating or denying certain addiction medications.”
Jan 07, 2022

The Government’s Ability to Control the Pandemic is at Stake

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments today about two of the Biden administration’s emergency Covid-19 regulations. At stake “is not only the future of the pandemic but also the federal government’s capacity to respond to continuing and future health threats,” writes Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law, in a guest essay for The New York Times.
Jan 03, 2022

Gov. Charlie Baker Won’t Mandate Masks Statewide — But Can He? Here’s What Legal Experts Say

“The mask mandate is the low-hanging fruit of COVID interventions,” Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells MassLive.
Dec 15, 2021

With Overdose Deaths Surging, Advocates on the Ground Push for Over-the-Counter Naloxone

Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Health in Justice Action Lab, calls for over-the-counter naloxone: “We have this lifesaving tool available throughout the whole time of this crisis, and the federal government has just been sitting on its hands.”
Dec 06, 2021

Pfizer and Merck Covid-19 Pills Are Coming Soon in the U.S., But Other Countries Will Have to Wait

Professor Brook Baker comments for The Wall Street Journalon the rollout of Pfizer's and Merck's promising Covid-19 treatment pills: “There’s lots of logistics and training and community health literacy that has to happen in order for this to work well.”
Dec 03, 2021

Time for Safehouse to Ask Forgiveness, Not Permission, on Philly Supervised Injection Site, Experts Say

“A lot of innovation in harm reduction has really proceeded through civil disobedience in the United States,” Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Health in Justice Action Lab, tells WHYY News. “It has not proceeded through formal legal channels."
Dec 03, 2021

Half of Us Could Lose Abortion Access if Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade

With a series of so-called “trigger laws” on the books in 21 states and elected officials hostile to abortion in charge of five more, half the country stands to lose access to abortion if the high court overturns Roe v. Wade. And, during oral arguments in a case over a Mississippi law that flies in the face of Roe, it appeared some justices were willing to do just that, say Professors Libby Adler and Martha Davis.
Dec 02, 2021

COVID-19 Travel Bans Little More Than ‘Public Health Theater,’ Professor Says

New travel bans meant to delay the spread of the omicron COVID-19 variant won’t help quell the virus, but may serve to stigmatize southern African nations where the mutation was first reported, Professor Wendy Parmet tells news@Northeastern.
Nov 29, 2021

US Saw 100,000 Drug Overdose Deaths in One Year Amid Pandemic, CDC Says

The severe shortage of Pfizer’s lifesaving overdose reversal drug naloxone “is a symptom of broader dysfunction in the US pharmaceutical industry, where public health concerns are secondary to financial concerns,” Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Health in Justice Action Lab, tells The Guardian.
Nov 18, 2021

A Quirky Ping-Pong Ball Lottery Just Dealt a Blow to Biden's COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

"The mandate is very defensible, and I think it should be seen as within OSHA’s purview,” Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law, tells TIME.
Nov 17, 2021

Pfizer Strikes a Deal With the Medicines Patent Pool for Generic Versions of Its COVID-19 Pill in Poor Countries

“The license between Pfizer and the Medicines Patent Pool is disappointingly limited to only 95 countries with just 53% of the world’s population, or 4.1 billion people,” Professor Brook Baker tell STAT.
Nov 02, 2021

Boston Notifies Mass. and Cass Residents Tents Will Be Removed Monday Morning

“This very situation arose a couple of years ago when #MassAndCass was cleared out under Operation Clean Sweep,” Professor Leo Beletsky, faculty director of Heath in Justice Action Lab, tells NBC10 Boston “And we’re back where we started so clearly this kind of approach doesn’t work.”
Nov 01, 2021

A Dangerous Legal Battle Over Vaccine Mandates Will Continue

“A decision by the Supreme Court that rejects its own precedent on vaccine mandates and ignores the distinctions between medical exemptions and religious exemptions will reverberate far beyond the Covid-19 pandemic,” writes Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, in an op-ed for The New York Times. “Whether or not the court intended to unsettle the constitutionality of vaccine mandates, it has done so.“
Oct 20, 2021

Will Giving COVID Booster Shots Make It Harder to Vaccinate the Rest of the World?

“To pretend that a dose in an American arm doesn’t mean one less dose in an African arm doesn’t make sense,” Professor Brook Baker, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells Scientific American.
Oct 20, 2021

Price for Drug that Reverses Opioid Overdoses Soars Amid Record Deaths

“It’s not enough to criticize the pharmaceutical industry,” Professor Leo Beletksy, faculty director of Health In Justice Action Lab, tells The Guardian. “We should be using the regulatory tools that we have to compel them to act in a different way.”
Oct 19, 2021

Human Behavior, Legal Doctrine and Policy Design

Listen back: On the Voices in Vulnerability podcast, Professor Richard Daynard, president of Northeastern Law’s Public Health Advocacy Institute, talks about taking on the tobacco industry, the importance of emotion to humanity and dispelling the notion of the rational actor.
Oct 19, 2021

Politics Is Derailing a Crucial Debate Over the Immunity You Get From Recovering From COVID-19

“Laws can’t be perfect, and they certainly can’t be perfect early in a pandemic," Professor Wendy Parmet tells STAT News . "You can’t expect the state policy to change with every preprint. That would just be madness.” @NUSLHealth @phlawwatch https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/19/politics-is-derailing-a-crucial-debate-over-the-immunity-you-get-from-recovering-from-covid-19
Oct 19, 2021

Will New Covid Treatments Be as Elusive for Poor Countries as Vaccines?

“Even from a somewhat self-interested perspective, it’s shortsighted and counterproductive not to ensure access to these medicines,” Professor Brook Baker '76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP, tells The New York Times .
Oct 10, 2021

Professor Jonathan Kahn Receives National Library of Medicine Grant

Professor Jonathan Kahn, a leading authority on biotechnology’s implications for our ideas of identity, rights and citizenship has been awarded a $150,000 grant from the National Library of Medicine for his book project, “The Uses of Diversity: Managing Race and Representation in Law, Politics, and the Biosciences.”
Sep 28, 2021

Some Advocates and Experts Push Back Against Sheriff’s Mass. & Cass Proposal

“For people who are already incarcerated, of course we should be providing them with the highest level of care possible,” Professor Leo Beletsky tells The BostonGlobe. “But paying taxpayer funds to repurpose jail-like [facilities] into ‘treatment’ is not supported by science or civil rights concerns.”
Sep 22, 2021

With CLEAR Objectives, Northeastern Law Announces New Center for Law, Equity and Race

Today, Northeastern University School of Law launches a new Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR), which will bring together the school’s pioneering programs and faculty— long engaged in theoretical and translational research, innovative pedagogy and collaborations with external communities — to address today’s challenges and provide tomorrow’s solutions for the nation’s most complex social challenges.
Sep 17, 2021

Will Joe Biden’s Vaccination Requirements Hold Up in Court?

“A presidential order for states to require vaccinations on their own would likely have been found unconstitutional,” Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tellsPolitiFact.
Sep 17, 2021

Are Biden’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates Legal?

The presidential COVID-19 vaccination directives would have been a “slam dunk” if they were issued a year ago, says Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law. But the way the Supreme Court and other courts have ruled against federal mandates lately, “I’m not quite so sure,” she adds.
Sep 09, 2021

What Would It Take To Vaccinate the World Against COVID-19?

“The continual emergence of variants of the virus elevates the threat that the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to devastate the globe, and raises the sense of urgency to shrink the sizes of unvaccinated communities around the world,” says Professor Brook Baker, senior policy analyst for Health GAP.
Sep 01, 2021

We’ve Entered a New Era in the Legal Battles of COVID-19

“In a well-functioning polity, we would not need litigation to ensure that children can remain healthy at school,” writes Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, in an op-ed for The Atlantic.
Aug 31, 2021

Northeastern Law Ranked No. 1 for Public Interest

In recognition of its national leadership in preparing students for public interest lawyering, Northeastern University School of Law has been ranked No. 1 for public interest in the 2021 “back to school” issue of preLawmagazine.
Aug 20, 2021

Anti-Vaxxers Try a New Ploy: Selling Religious Vaccine Exemptions Online

"We really do not want to be at a situation where our employers are scrutinizing and testing our religious sincerity,” Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells The American Independent. “We do not have an established religion and orthodoxy in this country. And yet, that is ripe for abuse and it allows for exploitation of the religious exemption."
Aug 16, 2021

Rich Nations Dip Into COVAX Supply While Poor Wait for Shots

“Rich countries are trying to garner geopolitical benefits from bilateral dose-sharing,” says Professor Brook Baker ’76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP.
Aug 13, 2021

Could Joe Biden Challenge Florida, Texas on Mask Policies? Probably Not.

"The Supreme Court is unlikely to say that the federal government can prevent the states from limiting the authority of their localities," Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law, tells PolitiFact.
Aug 09, 2021

House Democrats Push For Vaccine-Or-Test Mandate For Members And Staff

Professor Wendy Parmet tells Forbes the law around vaccine mandates for Congress is “different” than for other employers, but that the legal case for vaccine mandates in general is “pretty strong” if some exemptions are provided.
Aug 09, 2021

Video of Officer’s Collapse After Handling Powder Draws Skepticism

"This kind of misinformation is definitely harmful,” Professor @LeoBeletsky, faculty director of Health in Justice Action Lab, tells The New York Times. "If people think that they might die of an overdose from providing emergency assistance — that might cost lives.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/07/us/san-diego-police-overdose-fentanyl.html
Aug 04, 2021

Is It legal to Mandate Covid Vaccines? In Many Circumstances, Yes

CNN Politics asks: "Is it legal to mandate Covid vaccines?" Professor Wendy Parmet, faculty director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, offers expert insights.
Jul 30, 2021

Who Owns the Rights to COVID Vaccines?

Watch video: Professor Brook Baker appeared on Al Jazeera’s “Inside Story” to make the case for a vaccine patent waiver to boost production of the COVID vaccination.
Jul 23, 2021

Public Health Officials Have Tools To Beat Back COVID Again. Does Anyone Want To Use Them?

“Traditionally the courts and legislatures have been supportive of emergency public health actions,” Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells STAT. “But not so much anymore.”
Jul 21, 2021

Northeastern Law Magazine: Summer 2021 Issue

Check out the latest issue of Northeastern Law magazine. Features stories include: ‘Fertile Ground,' 'Inching Toward Immunity' and 'Talking 'Bout Evolution.' Read it online today!
Jul 20, 2021

State Efforts to Restrict Public Health Powers

Listen back: On The Week in Health Law podcast, Professor Wendy Parmet discusses recent state laws reducing public health emergency powers.
Jul 02, 2021

Covid-19 Vaccines and Intellectual Property

Listen back: On a webinar hosted by The Federalist Society, Professor Brook Baker discusses the pros and cons of the WTO COVID-19 TRIPS waiver proposal.
Jun 22, 2021

The Other Public Health Crisis: How The DOJ Can Flatten the Overdose Curve

“If this administration is serious about ending the overdose crisis, it will need to redeploy the tools of the DOJ in true service to public health. Change can’t come soon enough,” write Professor Leo Beletsky and his colleagues at Health in Justice Action Lab, in a co-authored op-ed for The Appeal.
Jun 08, 2021

The Impracticality of Relying on Compulsory Licenses to Expand Production Capacity for COVID-19 Vaccines

“The EU and other waiver-blocking countries must face the facts that IP barriers must be removed if we are to survive this viral plague,” writes Professor Brook Baker ‘76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP (Global Access Project), in his latest post for Infojustice.
Jun 02, 2021

A Global Search for Vaccines Fuels a Different Kind of Tourism

“We should be donating our excess vaccine doses to COVAX now to immediately vaccinate all health care workers and high-risk individuals across the world,” says Dr. Michael Sinha, visiting scholar at Northeastern Law's Center for Health Policy and Law.
Jun 01, 2021

Mandating COVID-19 Vaccines in Schools a Political Gamble for States

“There is some uncertainty and I think ambiguity in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act provisions that provide for emergency-use authorization about whether vaccines or medications that are authorized under that provision can be required,” Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law tells The National Law Journal. “We don’t have an authoritative pronouncement by a court.”
May 25, 2021

Have Covid-19 Deaths Been Undercounted? New Reports Say ‘Yes’ and Here’s Why It Matters.

“COVID-19 has had a much bigger footprint than we have estimated so far,” says Professor Brook Baker ‘76.
May 25, 2021

Texas Passes Restrictive Abortion Measures, Effective In September

Tune in to Texas Public Radio's The Source today at 1PM ET to hear Professor Aziza Ahmed weigh in on Texas’ new abortion restrictions.
May 20, 2021

The Supreme Court Will Hear an Abortion Case. What Comes Next?

By agreeing to hear an abortion case out of Mississippi that the state’s lower courts ruled was plainly unconstitutional under the landmark Roe v. Wade, the justices indicated that the nation’s highest court may seek to change the abortion standard, say Professors Aziza Ahmed and Dan Urman.
May 17, 2021

‘The CDC Guidance Is Not Law’: Legal Expert Weighs in on Future of Mask Mandates in Private Spaces

“It’s going to be somewhat harder for private businesses, especially in states that don’t still have mask mandates, to enforce their mandates as a practical matter,” Professor Wendy Parmet tells Boston 25 News.
May 14, 2021

Securing the TRIPS Waiver the World Needs: What Comes Next

"Preemptive voluntary tech transfer by companies and capacity investments by governments could and should begin now, even as the waiver text is being negotiated," writes Professor Brook Baker '76 in his latest blog for Health GAP.
May 07, 2021

There’s Something Missing From Biden’s Move to Free the Covid Vaccines

“There should be regional vaccine hubs in all regions of the world so that people aren’t dependent on just one place of a vaccine manufacturer or one supplier of key ingredients and components,” Professor Brook Baker tells The New Republic.
May 06, 2021

Calls for Drug Companies to Share Vaccine Formulas Grow as Global COVID Crisis Worsens

"We've been sold a bill of goods that somehow if we prioritize ourselves, we'll be safe," Professor Brook Baker '76, senior policy analyst for Health GAP (Global Access Project), tells CBS News. "It's in fact not true. We have to prioritize everyone, everywhere and not let intellectual property stand in the way of achieving that."
May 05, 2021

Third-Way Proposals from Big Pharma and the WTO are the Same-Old Way – Commercial Control of Supply, Price, and Distribution

In a policy brief for The People’s Vaccine, Professor Brook Baker outlines the arguments for government-led, open technology transfer and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccine production and distribution.
Apr 20, 2021

Here’s Why It’s Important to Call the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Review Phase a ‘Pause’

“The stakes are high right now,” Professor Wendy Parmet tells Northeastern News. “We want a vaccine that is safe and we want to save lives, but we don’t want to give a vaccine to subpopulations that may be particularly vulnerable to it if we have other choices for them.”
Apr 20, 2021

A Year Into Covid, States Debate Public Health Shutdown Powers

Public health has, to some extent, become “yet another of America’s endless political battlegrounds,” Professor Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern Law’s Center for Health Policy and Law, tells Undark. “We fight, politically, everything from Dr. Seuss to Covid. What has happened is that in many states, as a result of this, legislatures are rushing to consider and enact measures to reduce the governor’s authority.”
Apr 19, 2021

Northeastern Law Leaps to No. 5 for Health Care Law in 2022 U.S. News Ranking

Northeastern University School of Law is ranked No. 5 for health care law in U.S. News & World Report’s 2022 rankings, released today. The law school was previously ranked No. 11 in the 2021 rankings. 
Apr 12, 2021

Stalled At First Jab: Vaccine Shortages Hit Poor Countries

“Celebrating doses sufficient for only 19 million people, or 0.25% of global population, is tone deaf,” says Professor Brook Baker, senior policy analyst for HealthGAP (Global Access Project).
Apr 12, 2021

Conservative Courts Say They Can’t Set Health Policy — and Then They Do It Anyway

"For many elected officials, and even many judges, partisanship, rather than salus populi, seems to be the supreme law," writes Professor Wendy Parmet in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
Jan 30, 2021

Salus Populi Project Launches New Website

he Center for Health Policy and Law’s Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded project, Salus Populi: Educating the Judiciary About the Social Determinants of Health, launched a website, www.saluspopulidoh.com, which is a resource for judges and attorneys who are interested in learning more about how judges can impact health.