public health
Toxic Releases? Botched Drug Trials? — Not a Problem, in this Administration
The Trump Administration has essentially dropped enforcement of environmental laws and clinical trial requirements.
The easiest way to gut regulations is simply to stop enforcing them. That tried and true technique has been enthusiastically embraced by the Trump Administration. That’s been long suspected in terms of environmental law. Shockingly, the Administration has also mostly given up on enforcing the standards for conducting clinical drug trials. The breakdown in FDA …
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CONTINUE READING40 Legal Scholars Urge EPA to Withdraw Proposed Ozone NAAQS
EPA’s newest ozone rulemaking has failed to meet even the deferential standard of arbitrary and capricious review.
This blog is co-authored with Sean Hecht. On October 1, 2020, on behalf of 40 environmental and administrative law scholars affiliated with 33 universities in 18 states, Sean Hecht and I filed a comment letter urging EPA to withdraw its decision to keep the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone at the current …
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CONTINUE READINGManaging a Pandemic, Enron-Style
The Administration’s management harkens back to a spectacular business collapse at the turn of the century.
Think of this as a parable. I’ll draw out some parallels at the end with the Trump Administration’s handling of the coronavirus, as detailed in a story in Sunday’s Washington Post. But first I’ll let you make some of the connections yourself. The Trump team’s triumph in 2016 was one of the great upsets in …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Mystery of McConnell’s Litigation Shield
Why is he investing so much in something so draconian and so unnecessary?
As part of their proposed stimulus package, Senators John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell introduced a bill that gives almost complete immunity protection to businesses that fail to take precautions against the coronavirus. It’s called the “Safe to Work Act,” but really should be called the “Work at Your Own Risk Act.” McConnell says he won’t …
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CONTINUE READINGConstitutional Rights in a Pandemic
When does public health override individual rights?
Lockdowns and social distancing impinge on activities that are protected by the Constitution. That’s been true in many states of church services and in some states of abortion. When the cases have come before they courts, they have often turned to a 1905 Supreme Court case decision, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which upheld a state law …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat was Trump’s Role in Premature Reopening?
Yes, he was at fault, but it’s complicated.
In a column about a week ago, Paul Krugman pointed to the dire consequences of the reopenings in the Sunbelt and laid the blame entirely on Trump. He viewed it as “case of Republican governors following Trump’s lead.” The “main driving force,” he said, was Trump’s reelection strategy. There’s some truth to that, but it’s …
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CONTINUE READINGThe “American family” in crisis: Colonialism, COVID-19 risk, and climate vulnerability
The fight for racial justice must include a reckoning with US imperialism.
The recent spotlight on anti-Black violence has awoken many white Americans to an uncomfortable truth: that underneath its rhetoric of equality, the United States is a fundamentally racist country. The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on U.S. communities of color underscores this fact. The pandemic also reveals a lesser known but equally uncomfortable truth: that underneath …
CONTINUE READINGAnother Casualty of US Withdrawal from the WHO: The Environment
Unbeknownst to many, the WHO does important work on pollution problems.
Withdrawing from international cooperation in the midst of global pandemic is an idea that’s just as bad as it sounds. President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the WOrld Health Organization (WHO) withdrawal will also be harmful in other ways. Notably, a major component of the WHO’s work involves the health impacts of pollution and dangerous …
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CONTINUE READINGNetworks of Misinformation
How Anti-Public Health Messages and Activities Spread
Like a virus, misinformation can spread within a population. It has its super-spreaders, just like the coronavirus. It can mutate in ways that make it more contagious. And it can be weaponized. Research into networks of coronavirus-related communication has revealed how both true and false information spread through social media . Misinformation can spread like …
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CONTINUE READINGUsing and Abusing Models: Lessons from COVID-19
We’ve seen some great examples of how NOT to deal with models.
Models have figured heavily in government responses to the coronavirus. This has given us the opportunity for a real-time lesson in the uses of models. In the process, we’ve learned some important lessons in how to best make use of models — and equally importantly, in how not to use them. That’s directly relevant to …
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