Reflecting on their service as mentors in the fellowship program, the authors describe their experiences and offer thoughts on lessons learned about mentoring, individuals' roles in institutional changes, their own professional growth, and implications for and evaluation of legal and interprofessional education.

Vaccination is one of history's most successful public health interventions. Since 2000, vaccination campaigns against measles, which is highly contagious but preventable through the measles‐mumps‐rubella (MMR) vaccine, have reduced both the global incidence of the disease and measles deaths by 80 percent. However, progress toward measles elimination has slid backward in several previously well‐protected global regions. With more communities below or at risk of falling below the 95 percent immunization rates required for herd immunity—due more and more to vaccine skepticism (...) and declination rather than lack of access—many U.S. states and countries must reappraise their vaccination policies and programs. (shrink)

This piece explores legal, ethical, and policy arguments associated with using interventions that leverage feelings of shame and social exclusion to promote uptake of childhood immunizations by parents.

: In June 2002, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) approved draft recommendations concerning preparation for potential biological terror attacks that utilize the smallpox virus. ACIP recommends against both mandatory and voluntary vaccination of the general public. The present paper examines the moral and political considerations both for and against each of the general public vaccination options considered by the ACIP in the context of the state's authority over vaccination for the purposes of protecting public health. Although it is (...) clear that compulsory mass vaccination is not justified at this time, the issues surrounding voluntary vaccination are more complex. Should smallpox vaccination prior to an outbreak be made available to the general public? The paper concludes that the vaccine should not be made available at this time. This conclusion, however, is based upon contingent features of current circumstances, which would change once an outbreak occurred. In the event of a terror-related outbreak of smallpox, the general public's access to voluntary vaccination would become justified, even in areas beyond where the outbreak has occurred. (shrink)

Health care workers have not gone along with President Bush's request that they be vaccinated against smallpox in order to prepare the nation's health care system for a terrorist attack using the virus. But there is no professional moral obligation to receive the vaccination—either as a matter of public health or as a matter of national security.

Although interest in the field of public health law has dramatically increased over the past two decades, there remain significant challenges in communicating and sharing public health law-related knowledge. Access to quality information, which may assist in a public health department's efforts to protect the public's health, welfare, and safety, varies widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and interjurisdictional communication remains at best a patchwork quilt with many holes. What follows is an analysis of several approaches the Public Health Law Association (...) or other public health law-related organizations might undertake to serve as a conduit for the identification, gathering, and dissemination of extant public health law information, as well as the development of new public health law-related content, with a particular focus on the use of electronic means for such efforts. (shrink)

The Public Health Law Association’s grant proposal described the problem of accessing public health law information, and the charge for this paper, as follows:The last decade has witnessed a renaissance in public health law. An array of forces have given rise to new model acts, important litigation developments and a growing body of academic research in the field. While there have been some initial attempts to collate important materials, practitioners in the field lack access to “real world” documents and practice (...) guides. If public health law is to remain an organic and growing field and, more importantly, if the fruits of this renaissance are to have lasting practical effect, practitioners in multiple fields must have access to this body of knowledge. (shrink)