American Psychosis

 E. Fuller Torrey, American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System (Oxford University Press, 2013). 

Today at least one-third of homeless individuals are seriously mentally ill, as are approximately 20 percent of those incarcerated, and public facilities are overrun by untreated individuals. An unflinching account of the history -- and present day failings -- of our mental health treatment system, American Psychosis is a rallying cry for the necessity of establishing better psychiatric care for our nation's most vulnerable. 

-Publisher's Description

The New Intellectual Property of Health

Alberto Alemanno (New York University) & Enrico Bonadio (City University, London) (eds.), The New Intellectual Property of Health: Beyond Plain Packaging (Edward Elgar 2016).

"This timely book provides the first legal and policy analysis of the intellectual property (IP) aspects of a rapidly-growing category of regulatory measures affecting the presentation and advertising of certain health-related goods. The key goods examined are tobacco, alcohol, food, and pharmaceuticals.

Chapters focusing on both distinct policy areas and specific country examples serve to unearth the inherent tension emerging between these new measures as well as other categories of public health measures and IP regimes. This book discusses how to balance the legitimate interests of governments to promote human health and the protection and enforcement of IP rights. It also further explores how to amend IP regimes with a view to encouraging companies to produce and market healthier products.

Comprehensive and engaging, this book will provide innovative research angles to academics and students in the areas of both health and IP law. Its wealth of examples and analytic style will also prove insightful to legal professionals who advise on issues related to IP and public health as well as policy makers, governments and NGOs." 
—Publisher's description

In the Public Interest: Medical Licensing and the Disciplinary Process

Ruth Horowitz (New York University). In the Public Interest (Rutgers University Press, 2013).

"Ruth Horowitz traces the history of medical licensure and the mechanisms that democratic societies have developed to certify doctors to deliver critical services. Combining her skills as a public member of medical licensing boards and as an ethnographer, Horowitz illuminates the workings of the crucial public institutions charged with maintaining public safety. She demonstrates the complex agendas different actors bring to board deliberations, the variations in the board authority across the country, the unevenly distributed institutional resources available to board members, and the difficulties non-physician members face as they struggle to balance interests of the parties involved.
 
In the Public Interest suggests new procedures, resource allocation, and educational initiatives to increase physician oversight. Horowitz makes the case for regulations modeled after deliberative democracy that promise to open debates to the general public and allow public members to take a more active part in the decision-making process that affects vital community interests."

—From publisher's website

Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health

Nicholas Freudenberg (City University of New York).  Lethal but Legal (Oxford University Press, 2014). 

"Decisions made by six industries—food, tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceutical, gun, and auto—have a greater impact on today's health than the decisions made by scientists and policymakers. As the collective influence of corporations has grown, governments have increasingly stepped back and allowed for decisions that benefit corporate profit at the expense of public health.  Lethal but Legal examines how corporations have shaped—and plagued—public helath over the last century, beginning in industrialized countries and then moving into less-regualted developing regions.  It is both a current history of corporate antagonism towards health and an analysis of the emerging movements that are challenging those practices." 
  —Lethal but Legal book jacket