Journal of Health Law & Policy Symposia

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  2025--Skrmetti and the Future of Gender Affirming Care: Law, Policy, and Public Health Perils

  Erin Read, Michael Ulrich, Seema Mohapatra, Kelly K. Gillespie, Ezra Young, Alejandra Carabello, Ben Greene, June Choate, Shira Berkowitz, and Beth Gombas

  Each spring, the Center for Health Law Studies at Saint Louis University hosts its annual Health Law Symposium featuring leading experts and scholars.

  Conference topics focus on groundbreaking issues in health law and policy. The symposium proceedings are published in the Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy.

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  2024--Race, Gender and Disability: Reimagining Controlled Substances Regulation in Health Care to Reduce Intersectional Harms

  Alice Y. Abrokwa, Valarie Blake, Niraj Chavan, Jamille Fields Allsbrook, Aaron M. Laxton, Jennifer D. Oliva, Danielle Pelfrey Duryea, LJ Punch, Fred Rottnek, Michael S. Sinha, and Heather Walter-McCabe

  For more than a century, U.S. drug policy has been designed to disproportionately disempower and punish already marginalized communities. The effects have reverberated from the criminal legal system to matters as fundamental as employment, housing, and parenting. These structural forces of oppression are also pervasive in health care and result in serious and even life-threatening harms to people who use (or are perceived as using) controlled substances or could benefit from medical care that includes controlled substances. The symposium will examine the ways in which controlled substances laws and policies induce harm to individuals in need of appropriate health care. These harms are disproportionately felt by people in one or more minoritized and racialized groups (e.g., Black women with chronic pain), compounding the negative impacts of social determinants of health and worsening existing health inequities. Speakers will address specific areas of inequity and discrimination and offer approaches to reduce existing harm from current law and policy and its implementation.

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  2023--The Laws, Policies, and Politics of Public Health Emergency Powers

  Sabrina Adler, Scott Burris, Kelly Deere, Robert Gatter, Dawn Hunter, Jill Krueger, and Wendy E. Parmet

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  2022--Environmental Justice: at the Intersection of Climate Change and Public Health

  Carlton Waterhouse, Michele Okoh, Cinnamon Piñon Carlarne, Mary Wood, Lance Gable, Joshua D. Sarnoff, Michael Gerrard, Lauren E. Bartlett, Robin Kundis Craig, Amy Hardberger, Madeline Semanisin, and Ana Santos Rutschman

  The Center for Health Law Studies at Saint Louis University School of Law will host its 34th Health Law Symposium, which will explore themes related to climate change, environmental justice and the public health. At a time in which the disparate impact of climate change has become the subject of daily news, the symposium brings together scholars and practitioners to reflect on the implications of a warming planet for health law and policy, environmental justice and equity. Due to the pandemic, the event will be held via Zoom. Registration is free. The proceedings will be published in the Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy.

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  2021: Disciplining Physicians Who Inflict Harm: New Legal Resources for State Medical Board Members

  Tristan J. McIntosh, Elizabeth Pendo, Patricia A. King, Kelly K. Dineen, Jennifer D. Oliva, Lissa Lamkin Broome, John M. Conley, and Liz Chiarello

  Serious ethical violations among physicians undermine public trust in the healthcare system and cause serious harm to patients. Egregious forms of wrongdoing that direct harm patients, such as sexual abuse, wrongful prescribing of controlled substances, and unnecessary surgeries, are particularly alarming. State medical boards are tasked with protecting the public by ensuring that physicians adhere to ethical guidelines and appropriate standards of care. However, it is unclear why boards sometimes fail to remove seriously offending physicians from practice in a timely manner or what measures would make boards more effective in protecting patients from harmful misconduct.

  This conference will present the findings of an innovative Greenwall Foundation funded project that provides solutions to this problem. Working directly with state medical board members and other experts, the researchers have developed a consensus on the most important tools and practices needed to protect the public when physicians are accused of egregious wrongdoing, as well as barriers to adopting those tools and practices. The conference will focus on these findings and invite response to a carefully chosen set of recommendations for state statutory provisions for discussion.

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  2019--The Struggle for the Soul of Medicaid

  Sara Rosenbaum, Matt Salo, Jane Perkins, MaryBeth Musumeci, Dayna Bowen Matthew, and Sidney D. Watson

  Medicaid was the "sleeper provision" when Congress created Medicare in 1965. Today, it is the workhorse of the U.S. health system, covering nearly half of all births, 1 in 3 children, and 2 in 3 people in nursing homes. Medicaid now provides coverage to 1 in 5 Americans, with enrollment soaring to more than 76 million people since 2014 when the Affordable Care Act expanded eligibility to include all low-income working age adults. It is both the largest source of federal revenues to states and the second largest item in state budgets after education. This symposium explored the future of Medicaid, and the competing visions that struggle to define its future.

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  2018--Public Health Law in the Era of Alternative Facts, Isolationism, and the One Percent

  Robert Gatter, Heather A. McCabe, Elizabeth Van Nostrand, Laura Hermer, Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler, Kimberly Cogdell Grainge, Amy T. Campbell, Keon L. Gilbert, Kelly K. Dineen, and Micah Berman

  Broad shifts in U.S. policy under President Trump affect population health well beyond the repeal of the ACA's tax-penalty. How do we pursue population health in a political regime suspect of or even hostile to scientific evidence? In an environment that accommodates racial and economic disparities, is health equity possible? SLU LAW's 30th Annual Health Law Symposium explored these and other questions.