Georgetown University Law Center

About: Georgetown University Law Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supreme court & Global health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.

Stemming the global trade in falsified and substandard medicines

Abstract: WHEN HIPPOCRATES ADVISED PHYSICIANS TO never give a deadly drug, he assumed they would know for sure that the medicines they prescribed were safe. Today, criminals and unscrupulous manufacturers have permeated the global pharmaceutical market, calling into question this basic assumption of clinical practice. Between November 2012 and March 2013, an injectable drug compounded under unhygienic conditions at the New England Compounding Pharmacy was linked to more than 700 illnesses and 50 deaths. In poor countries, where drug regulatory oversight is weaker, the problem is worse, but blends with the background noise of high mortality and strained health systems. Only in rare cases, as when 120 Pakistanis died after taking a carelessly made batch of isosorbide mononitrate, do people in lowand middle-income countries learn of their vulnerability. The pharmaceutical trade is transnational, lucrative, and extensive; the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates the value of the illegal antimalarial drug market in west Africa alone exceeds $400 million. These products pose immense dangers. Falsified and substandard drugs may contain no active pharmaceutical ingredient or contain the active ingredient at subtherapeutic doses. Poor-quality antimicrobial drugs are a major problem in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where they contribute to drug resistance, reducing a drug’s effectiveness. Society must bear the cost of developing alternate therapies. Poor-quality products increase health care costs, while causing patients to lose confidence in the health system. In a report released recently, an Institute of Medicine expert committee examined the causes of, and solutions to, the problem of falsified and substandard drugs in the United States and globally.

US smokers’ beliefs, experiences and perceptions of different cigarette variants before and after the FSPTCA ban on misleading descriptors such as ‘light’, ‘mild’, or ‘low’

Abstract: INTRODUCTION: In December 2008, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took action that prompted the removal of nicotine and tar listings from cigarette packs and ads. As of June 2010, the US Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act prohibited the use of explicit or implicit descriptors on tobacco packaging or in advertising that convey messages of reduced risk or exposure, specifically including terms like "light," "mild," and "low" and similar descriptors. This study evaluates the effect of these two policy changes on smokers' beliefs, experiences and perceptions of different cigarettes. METHODS: Using generalized estimating equations models, this study analyzed survey data collected between 2002 and 2013 by the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Study regarding US smokers' beliefs, experiences, and perceptions of different cigarettes. RESULTS: Between 2002 and 2013, smoker misperceptions about "light" cigarettes being less harmful did not change significantly and remained substantial, especially among those who reported using lower-strength cigarettes. After the two policy changes, reported reliance on pack colors, color terms, and other product descriptors like "smooth" to determine cigarette strength style trended upward. CONCLUSIONS: Policies implemented to reduce smoker misperceptions that some cigarettes are safer than others appear to have had little impact. Because of pack colors, color terms, descriptors such as "smooth," cigarette taste or feel, and possibly other characteristics, millions of smokers continue to believe, inaccurately, that they can reduce their harms and risks by smoking one cigarette brand or sub-brand instead of another, which may be delaying or reducing smoking cessation. IMPLICATIONS: What this study adds: This study confirms that US policies to reduce smoker misperceptions that some cigarettes are less harmful than others have not been successful. Following the removal of light/low descriptors and tar and nicotine numbers from cigarette packs and ads, pack colors, color words, other descriptors (eg, smooth), and sensory experiences of smoother or lighter taste have helped smokers to continue to identify their preferred cigarette brand styles and otherwise distinguish between which brands and styles they consider "lighter" or lower in tar and, mistakenly, less harmful than others. These findings provide additional evidence to support new enforcement or regulatory action to stop cigarettes and their packaging from misleading smokers about relative risk, which may be reducing or delaying quit attempts.

Teaching Law Students How to Feel: Using Negotiations Training to Increase Emotional Intelligence

Abstract: This article suggests that negotiation courses using traditional lectures combined with role plays and simulated exercises can be used to train students in understanding emotion and increasing their emotional intelligence. The article defines emotion and emotional intelligence; describes and analyzes one simulated exercise that has proven to be particularly potent in the classroom for teaching both the theory and practice of emotional intelligence; sets forth the rudimentary components of a possible curriculum for emotions training; and concludes with reasons why law schools and other professional degree-granting programs can and should make training in emotions a curriculum staple.

The International Migration and Recruitment of Nurses: Human Rights and Global Justice

Abstract: The international migration of health workers - physicians, nurses, midwives, and pharmacists - leaves the world's poorest countries with severe human resource shortages, seriously jeopardizing the achievement of the U.N. health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Advocates for global health call active recruitment in low-income countries a crime. Despite the pronounced international concern, there is little research and few solutions. This commentary focuses on the international recruitment of internationally educated nurses (IENs) from the perspective of human rights and global justice. It explains the complex reasons for nurse shortages in rich and poor countries; the duties of source and host countries; the human rights of health workers; and offers principles for responsible recruiting, focusing on national and global solutions.

Inference under Stability of Risk Preferences

Abstract: We leverage the assumption that preferences are stable across contexts to partially identify and conduct inference on the parameters of a structural model of risky choice. Working with data on households' deductible choices across three lines of insurance coverage and a model that nests expected utility theory plus a range of non-expected utility models, we perform a revealed preference analysis that yields household-specific bounds on the model parameters. We then impose stability and other structural assumptions to tighten the bounds, and we explore what we can learn about households' risk preferences from the intervals defined by the bounds. We further utilize the intervals to (i) classify households into preference types and (ii) recover the single parameterization of the model that best fits the data. Our approach does not entail making distributional assumptions about unobserved heterogeneity in preferences.