BU Law Hosts 39th Health Law Professors Conference
Attendees considered dynamic topics like the Affordable Care Act, food and drug law, quarantine, and patient privacy.
Health law scholars from across the country and around the world traveled to Boston University School of Law this June for the 39th Health Law Professors Conference. The largest health law event in the country, the conference attracts professionals who teach law or bioethics in schools of law, medicine, public health, health care administration, pharmacy, nursing, and dentistry. This was the largest Health Law Professors conference to date, with record-breaking attendance. It was co-sponsored by the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics (ASLME), Harvard Law School, and the Northeastern University School of Law.
The conference was founded in 1978 by George Annas, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, professor of law, and director of the Center for Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights at BU’s School of Public Health. Originally conceived as a workshop, the sessions attended by its original 47 participants—entitled “Is Health Law a Discipline?” and “Contents of a Health Law Course”—spoke to the newness of the field of health law. As the conference grew, ASLME took a greater role and law schools across the country began to host.
Collaboration and collegiality were constant themes throughout the weekend. In his welcoming remarks, N. Neal Pike Scholar in Health and Disability Law and Professor of Law Kevin Outterson noted the many opportunities for collaboration among scholars of health law in Boston, from the many biotechnology companies in the area to the health law policy discussed at universities and hospitals. “Boston is a great health law city,” he said. “We’re proud of the fact that we have a lot of different law schools working together for this event.” Recalling the first time he attended the conference, he noted: “Many of the people I talked to at that first meeting have become great friends. This is my favorite meeting of the year, and it’s because of the people who come back.”
Donald Berwick, former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, kicked off the event with a lecture at Harvard Law School entitled “Radical Redesign of Health Care and its Implications for Policy.” Sidney Wolfe, founder of the Health Research Group of Public Citizen, addressed the corrupting influence of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992 on the Food & Drug Administration’s drug approval process. Multiple concurrent sessions followed throughout the weekend, featuring scholarship on far-ranging topics relevant to public health and health law. Presenters and panelists considered the many facets of food and drug law, health care law, patient privacy, the legal doctrine of informed consent, and much more.
David Soley, of Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson, delivered the keynote address. He discussed his representation of Kaci Hickox, the Doctors without Borders nurse who, upon her return from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, was arrested and forced into quarantine by two governors even though she showed no symptoms of Ebola. Soley argued persuasively in a Maine court that Hickox’s detention was unconstitutional—a reaction to panic by the Governor rather than based on good medicine or public health practice.
The 2016 Jay Healey Teaching Award was presented to Wendy Parmet, Northeastern University School of Law’s Matthews Distinguished University Professor of Law and director of the Program on Health Policy and Law. The award honors a teacher of health law who embodies the passion and dedication to teaching of its namesake, Jay Healey, one of the founders of the Health Law Professor Conference who tragically died in 1993 from pancreatic cancer.
In a Saturday panel, BU Law’s Nancy Barton Research Scholar and Professor of Law Kathryn Zeiler presented “Communication and Resolution Programs: The Numbers Don’t Add Up,” which considered potential costs and benefits of a new approach to lowering the cost of medical malpractice litigation.
“We invited 50 people to the first conference and almost everyone came,” says George Annas. “It has been a pleasure to watch the conference grow ever since, and to welcome new and returning participants back to BU Law to celebrate our 39th meeting. It was also fitting to have the conference reception at Boston’s Tea Party Museum, which commemorates a critical event in our nation’s legal history—as well as providing a venue for the conference’s first “open mic” for participants.”
