Petrie-Flom Center: Health Law, Biotech and Bioethics

At a March 27 Petrie-Flom event on medical debt and universal health coverage, health experts and journalists raise serious concerns about the affordability of testing and hospital care.

In a Q&A, scholars at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School raise important legal and ethical questions about health care delivery and the enactment of extraordinary public health measures in response to the ongoing epidemic.

This month, Harvard Law Professors Jim Greiner and I. Glenn Cohen teamed up with bioethics scholar Holly Fernandez Lynch to author “Overcoming obstacles to experiments in legal practice,” in which the collaborators argue in favor of randomized studies in legal research over the common practice of relying on the expertise and judgment of individuals.

Patients are often subjected to nonconsensual procedures and other mistreatment during the birthing process; Alexa Richardson, a student fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, is working to bring this situation to light.

Amid rising rates of diabetes and obesity in the nation, the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School recently hosted a panel discussion concerning levies—those enacted, those proposed and those failed—on sugary beverages in jurisdictions nationwide.

The General Counsels Roundtable helps influential health law attorneys stay on top of or even ahead of changes in health law and policy. The roundtable connects GC to experts at HLS and the broader university, while also strengthening ties between faculty and legal practice.

This fall, the Harvard Law School Library hosted a series of book talks by Harvard Law School authors on topics ranging from forgiveness in law, transparency in health and fidelity in constitutional practice.

Clinical Professor Robert Greenwald discusses PEPFAR’s impact at home in the United States, policy barriers to "getting to zero," and ways to address the epidemic head-on.

Calls are growing for the U.S. to lift a ban on mitochondrial replacement therapy, or MRT, a procedure developed to enable women who are at risk of passing on rare but devastating diseases to have healthy, biologically related children.

As part of a series called Focal Point, in which the Harvard Gazette asks a range of Harvard faculty members to answer the same question, I. Glenn Cohen explains why we should scrutinize what is and then ponder what should be.

Dalia Deak ’19 is this year’s winner of the individual David Grossman Exemplary Clinical Award, given each year to the student who embodies the pro bono spirit of the late professor and exemplifies putting theory into practice through clinical work.

In a lecture titled “The Second Reproductive Revolution,” I. Glenn Cohen, the faculty director of the Petrie-Flom Center, marked his appointment as the first James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law.

A recent event at Harvard Law School brought together scientists and lawyers to start a dialogue on neuroscience, trauma, and justice as part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Petrie-Flom Center at HLS and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Harvard researchers—including HLS Professor and Petrie-Flom Center Faculty Director Glenn Cohen—and others share their views on key issues in the field.

The Wall Street Journal investigative reporter whose new book chronicles the spectacular collapse of the blood-testing company Theranos and its alleged fraudulent activity told a Harvard audience that the fall is a cautionary tale for other high-tech firms aspiring to disrupt the health care industry.

Last week, Harvard commemorated the centennial of the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed more than 50 million people worldwide with Outbreak Week, a series of events across the university.

During the introduction to the book launch event for “Big Data, Health Law, and Bioethics,” one of the editors, Harvard Law School Professor I. Glenn Cohen ’03, faculty director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, told a story about how powerful – and perhaps foreboding – big data can be.

Maayan Sudai, an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School, has been awarded a prestigious scholarship from Israel’s Dan David Foundation to support her work examining health activism from a legal perspective.

On Jan. 23, the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL) at the University of Copenhagen launched a new collaboration, the Project on Precision Medicine, Artificial Intelligence, and the Law (PMAIL).

This fall, the Harvard Law School Library hosted a series of book talks by HLS authors, with topics ranging from Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts to a Citizen's Guide to Impeachment. As part of this ongoing series, faculty authors from various disciplines shared their research and discussed their recently published books.

This fall, Glenn Cohen, Harvard Law School professor and faculty director for the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics delivered a talk titled “Are There Non-human Persons? Are There Non-person Humans?,” which explored how law and morality should accommodate animals and artificial intelligence alongside human beings.