Physicians are expected to ensure that patients are meaningfully informed and have voluntarily consented prior to engaging in any medical interventions upon a competent patient with decisional capacity. One aspect of informed consent is the disclosure of information that a reasonable patient might require to make a knowledgeable decision. A potential exception to this principle arises regarding the disclosure of a surgeon’s degree of skill compared to that of their competitors. Whether or not a surgeon has an ethical obligation to disclose relative success rates becomes even more challenging with regard to facial feminization surgery (FFS) for transgender women, where the success of outcomes is highly subjective. This essay explores legal and ethical considerations regarding the disclosure of comparative surgical outcomes for patients pursuing FFS.

As the opioid crisis in the United States evolved, so did the relationship between prescribers and pharmaceutical companies that manufacture prescription opioids, with policymakers at both the state and national levels focused on the issue of prescription opioid misuse. This article discusses the role of the prescriber–pharmaceutical company relationship with respect to opioid over- and underprescribing, the evolution of that relationship over time, and its contribution to what is now commonly known as the U.S. opioid crisis or overdose epidemic. The United States saw several “waves” of prescription opioid misuse, and this article characterizes the relationship between prescribers and pharmaceutical companies in similar waves. The article proposes several prescriber- and manufacturer-focused “solutions” that can be implemented to address and lessen the effects of the ongoing crisis. Changes directed at prescribers and manufacturers must be implemented in tandem to ensure such solutions do not, in attempting to fill the existing cracks in the system, create even more.

"Increased Deaths-at-Home in Nevada During the COVID-19 Pandemic." Journal of Legal Medicine, 41(sup1), pp. 24–25

"Mortality of COVID-19 and Seasonal Influenza in Southern Nevada and the United States." Journal of Legal Medicine, 41(sup1), p. 31

This article describes the impact of the 2009 Family Smoking and Prevention Tobacco Control Act (TCA) on local tobacco control through the lens of New York City’s experience during the first 10 years after the TCA was enacted, highlighting one meaningful change and an opportunity that has failed to materialize. Much of the analysis regarding the TCA highlights the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new powers and the TCA’s impact on a national level. However, the TCA also opened up opportunities for local governments to pursue sound tobacco control policies that previously seemed fraught with high legal risk. This article focuses on two aspects of the TCA. First, the TCA weakened one of the tobacco industry’s most reliable litigation weapons—preemption. Second, the TCA authorized the FDA to combat the illicit trade of tobacco products. Despite clear language in the TCA, the FDA has not signaled an inclination to take action regarding illicit trade in the context of tobacco tax evasion.

The landmark symposium, A Decade of the Tobacco Control Act: Progress, Setbacks, and the Future of Tobacco Control, organized by the Public Health Law Center and held in conjunction with the 2019 National Conference on Tobacco or Health, assessed the first 10 years of federal tobacco regulation. In this introduction to the symposium, the Public Health Law Center’s executive director provides the context for insights by prominent experts from government, health organizations, and academia, acknowledging the mixed record of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation to date and suggesting that the agency’s ultimate success or failure will be determined by the answers to three fundamental, but still unresolved, questions: What is the true goal of federal regulation? How boldly or cautiously will the FDA approach that goal? And who will the agency serve? The answers to those questions, he argues, will determine the prospects for progress in controlling the nation’s leading cause of preventable death.

It was an honor and a pleasure to draft the problem and the bench brief for the 2019 National Health Law Moot Court Competition. This year, the Moot Court Competition was concerned with opioid liti...

"A Proposal for Oversight of Gene Editing in Human Embryos Using CRISPR-Cas9 Technology." Journal of Legal Medicine, 40(sup2), pp. 7–8