Jason Iuliano ’11 will have two articles published in forthcoming editions of the Journal of Food Law and Policy and the West Virginia Law Review. Students rarely have articles published in law reviews and journals though they regularly contribute brief notes; Iuliano’s dual contribution is exceptionally notable.
The first, written for the Journal of Food Law and Policy and entitled “Killing Us Sweetly: How to Take Industry Out of the FDA,” describes how corporate profits are prioritized over consumer safety in the approval of artificial sweeteners.
The paper, according to Iuliano, draws heavily from themes in Professor Lawrence Lessig’s new seminar, “Institutional Corruption.”
Iuliano contends that FDA leaders are closely tied to and corrupted by industry interests. Decision makers, he writes, banned the natural herb stevia but approved carcinogenic sweeteners like saccharin, aspartame and sucralose despite warnings from scientists and their own review panels; the latter are more profitable. Iuliano proposes two reforms that might allow the FDA to become independent of corporate control: strengthening conflict of interest regulations and preventing companies from participating in safety trials.
His second article, forthcoming at the West Virginia Law Review and entitled “Eliminating Earmarks: Why the Congressional Line Item Vote Can Succeed Where the Presidential Line Item Veto Failed,” examines the significant national debt that may be incurred as a result of congressional earmarking. Iuliano proposes the congressional line item vote as an innovative alternative to previously proposed bills that would grant the president the line item veto power.
Iuliano says he was motivated to write the article last summer after learning that President Obama told Republican congressmen that he wanted the line item veto.
“Despite extensive evidence showing that the power is ineffective, the line item veto reaches the congressional docket every year. This annual revival epitomizes the type of grandstanding that occurs in politics. If members of Congress were really concerned about the budget, they would look for ways to increase their own accountability,” he said.
Iuliano says his suggested reform would “force House members to vote on individual provisions of a bill. The congressional line item vote has the potential to decrease the deficit, eliminate earmarks, reduce log-rolling, and increase congressional accountability.”
Iuliano is also a senior editor at the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and the social chair of the Harvard Law Republicans. He spent his 1L summer at Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell in Wilmington, DE.