Sydney Health Law

Category: Uncategorized

  • Public health law in the USA: What can Australia learn?

    SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT:  Public Health Law and Health Leadership in the United States: What can Australia learn? Thursday 19 July, 6.00-7.30pm, Sydney Law School In 2016, life expectancy at birth in the United States fell for the second year in a row.  Since his inauguration in 2017, President Trump and his administration have taken a number…

  • Trump: the war on breastfeeding

    The New York Times reports that US officials threatened to unleash trade sanctions and withdraw military aid from Ecuador unless it withdrew a resolution at May’s World Health Assembly calling on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding”. The article is worth reading in its entirety. As the father of a currently breastfeeding infant, I…

  • Sparks v Hobson must go to the High Court: here’s why

    In NSW, Section 5O of the Civil Liability Act provides a defence to a doctor or health professional who is defending a negligence claim. Under s 5O, a person will not be liable “if it is established that the professional acted in a manner that (at the time the service was provided) was widely accepted…

  • What becomes of a country that cannot protect its young?

      March for our lives, Washington DC, 24 March 2018   It’s too early to say if the grassroots social movement initiated by students who survived the gun massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida will be successful in nudging America’s gun laws in the direction of rationality and evidence. After killing 17…

  • NSW Law Reform Commission recommends far-reaching reform of guardianship legislation

    In 2016, the New South Wales Law Reform Commission was asked to review the Guardianship Act 1987 (NSW), having regard to UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and a variety of other matters. With the submission date for comments on the draft proposals now closed, we look forward to the final report. The Commission’s…

  • A Foundation for a smoke-free world…funded by a cigarette multinational: more smoke and mirrors?

    The Swiss like butter on both sides of their toast. Headquartered in Lausanne, half an hour’s train ride from the World Health Organisation in Geneva, you’ll find the headquarters of the world’s most profitable tobacco company, Philip Morris International (PMI). Makers of Marlboro and other global brands. A few years ago, at the end of…

  • IVF stuff-ups and tort liability for loss of genetic affinity

    Most of us know Singapore for its excellent airport, excellent food and other diversions.  But a recent decision of Singapore’s Court of Appeal, ACB v Thomson Medical, deserves attention. The case is noted here. In this case, a mistake was made in the process of an in vitro-fertilisation procedure involving a Singaporean Chinese woman and…

  • Announcement: Sydney Law School, QUT combine in hosting health law masterclass

    Sydney Health Law, the focal point for health law teaching and research at Sydney Law School, and the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at QUT, are co-hosting a health law masterclass at Sydney Law School on Friday 6 October, 9.00am-4.00pm. Click here for registration, and a preview of the program and of the presenters.…

  • Liability for failure to effectively manage morbidly obese patients: it’s time to look again at Varipatis v Almario – here’s why

    What should a GP do with a morbidly obese patient who is in denial about their weight problem? Although it involved a complex set of facts, it’s time to revisit Almario v Varipatis (No 2) [2012] NSWSC 1578, reversed on appeal (Varipatis v Almario [2013] NSWCA 76). Doctors should take no comfort in the fact…

  • Excluding bottled water, only 1.3% of food and beverage advertising across the Sydney train network is consistent with a healthy diet

    New research from the Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders at the University of Sydney, and Sydney Law School, has investigated the quality of nutrition of food and beverage advertising on every station of Sydney’s metropolitan train network. Judged by revenues, outdoor advertising of food, on billboards and other advertising spaces, is…

  • Queensland’s Healthy Futures Commission

    Health promotion in Queensland could receive a turbo-boost if the Healthy Futures Commission Queensland Bill 2017 is passed. This Bill illustrates a sometimes neglected aspect of public health law: use of law to build new institutions, to encourage partnerships, and to create a clear legislative mandate to address health challenges. The Healthy Futures Commission was an…

  • Enabling the angels of death?

    Draft voluntary euthanasia legislation, called the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2017 (NSW) has been released for public comment. Drafted by a cross-Parliamentary working group, it may be the closest contender yet for the legalisation of assistance-in-dying for people living in NSW who are suffering from a terminal disease. A short summary of the Bill appears…

  • #FitSpo? No thanks.

    Now that we’re in May, it’s likely that everyone’s New Year’s resolutions to eat better and drink less have fallen by the wayside. And as we move into winter (in the Southern hemisphere at least), it’s getting harder to convince yourself to get out from under the blankets and go for an early morning run. It’s…

  • Dr David Nabarro, WHO D-G candidate, on a sugar tax

    The World Health Organisation may be in for interesting times if Dr David Nabarro becomes the next Director-General. Only three candidates are now in the contest.  Two of them were Commissioners of the WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity: Dr Nabarro, from the UK, and Dr Sania Nishtar, from Pakistan (who was Co-Chair of the…

  • “Party like it’s payday!” urges Diageo Australia (before your welfare cheque runs out?)

    It looks like Diageo Australia is at it again. No, this time they’re not advertising Bundy Rum to a 3 year old. Instead, they’re urging Western Australians to “Party like it’s payday” – hoisting ads for Captain Morgan Original Spiced Gold Rum around the Perth suburbs, including right outside a Centrelink office. Whatever were they…

  • Dr Rodney Syme and Nembutal

    A Good Death In the mid-1970s, a Melbourne urologist, Rodney Syme, sat facing Len, a man whose invasive bladder cancer was causing incontinence and blood clots that blocked the flow of urine. Len needed to urinate every fifteen minutes, and frequently wet himself.  He was in excruciating pain.  It is cases like this, Syme would…

  • Advancing the Right to Health: the Vital Role of Law

    More than 20 years ago, Chris Reynolds, an Australian pioneer in our understanding of public health law, wrote that: “law is a powerful tool, as potent as any of the medical technologies available to treat disease”, and yet “our understanding of the potential of [public health law]…to help…citizens to lead longer and healthier lives, is…

  • Once more with feeling…Barnaby Joyce on the merits of a sugary drinks tax

    Photo: Tongan Health Promotion Foundation   When I looked up from marking exams and saw the look on Barnaby Joyce’s face, I just knew he was seeing red about the Grattan Institute’s proposal for a sugary drinks tax, levied at a rate of 40 cents per 100 grams of sugar. The Grattan Institute report estimates…

  • UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel: a bold vision for improving access to essential medicines, or a “deep disappointment”?

    The UN Secretary General’s High-level Panel on Access to Medicines published its final report on 14 September 2016. It took just two days for the US State Department to dismiss the report in a strongly-worded rebuke. The Panel’s recommendations cover a wide area, including countries’ use of the flexibilities contained in TRIPS [the World Trade…

  • Abortion law reform on the horizon in NSW and Queensland

    Contrary to popular belief, abortion is not available “on demand” in NSW. The Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) contains three criminal offences relating to abortion. Section 83 creates an offence for unlawfully administering a drug or using any instrument or other means to procure a woman’s miscarriage, Section 82 creates an offence for a woman to…