Health Law and Bioethics

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Editor's note: The numbers in brackets in the text refer to pages in the reviewed work

Notes

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Law and the Court, in The Essential Holmes 145, 147 (Richard A. Posner ed., 1992).

The contributing authors are: John D. Colombo of University of Illinois College of Law; Mary Crossley of University of Pittsburgh School of Law; Judith Daar of Whittier Law School; Michele Goodwin of University of Minnesota Law School; Lawrence O. Gostin of Georgetown University Law Center; Thomas L. Greaney of Saint Louis University School of Law; Lisa C. Ikemoto of University of California, Davis School of Law; Sandra H. Johnson of Saint Louis University School of Law; Joan H. Krause of University of North Carolina School of Law (she was at University of Houston Law Center at the time the book was published); Alan Meisel of University of Pittsburgh School of Law; Katrina A. Pagonis of Georgetown University Law Center; Richard S. Saver of University of North Carolina School of Law (he also was at University of Houston Law Center at the time of publication); and Robin Fretwell Wilson of Washington & Lee University School of Law.

These cases include: Canterbury v. Spence, 464 F.2d 772 (D.C. Cir. 1972); Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, 497 U.S. 261 (1990); Darling v. Charleston Memorial Hospital, 211 N.E.2d 253 (Ill. 1965); In the Matter of Karen Quinlan, 355 A.2d 647 (N.J. 1976); and Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905).

Steven Goldberg & Lawrence O. Gostin, Law and Science 2 (2006).

Id. at 1; see also Wibren Van der Burg, Law and Bioethics 4, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract= 1447276 (last visited May 26, 2010).

The famous saying related to this analogy, often attributed to Otto von Bismarck, is: “If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.” Otto von Bismarck, Quotation No. 996, in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service (Suzy Platt ed., 1989) available at http://www.bartleby.com/73/996.html (last visited June 24, 2010); see Frank W. Tracy, The Report of the Committee on Uniform Laws of the American Bankers’ Association, 15 Banking L.J. 542, 542 (1898) (quoting an Illinois legislator saying much the same thing).

In fact, the United States government uses public funds to support scientific and technological research and development (R&D). Specifically:

In his FY2010 budget request, President Obama sought $147.620 billion for R&D, a $555 million (0.4%) increase from the estimated FY2009 R&D funding level of $147.065 billion (not including FY2009 R&D funding provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (P.L. 111–5)[)]. According to the Obama Administration, preliminary allocations of R&D funding provided under P.L. 111–5 brought total FY2009 R&D funding to $165.400 billion.

Congressional Research Service, Federal Research and Development Funding: FY2010, Summary (Jan. 12, 2010) available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40710.pdf (last visited May 26, 2010). In addition to the President, Congress, which must approve the federal budget, “play[s] a central role in defining the nation's R&D priorities.” Id. As to the allocation of R&D funding:

[s]ix federal agencies received 95.1% of total federal R&D spending in the President's FY2010 request: the Department of Defense (54.0%), Department of Health and Human Services (21.0%), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (7.7%), Department of Energy (7.3%), National Science Foundation (3.6%), and Department of Agriculture (1.5%). The President's FY2010 request included $30.884 billion for basic research; $28.139 billion for applied research; $84.054 billion for development; and $4.543 billion for R&D facilities and equipment.

Id.

Recent examples include the economy-rocking financial scandals of ENRON and WorldCom, which were followed up by the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Pub. L. No. 107-204, 116 Stat. 745 (2002).

David Berube, Nano-hype: The Truth Behind the Nanotechnology Buzz 216 (2006).

Davis Baird, Navigating Nanotechnology Through Society, in Nanotechnology: Societal Implications—Individual Perspectives 75, 80 (Mihail C. Roco &William Sims Bainbridge eds., 2007).