Wendy K. Mariner

Professor of Law

Edward R. Utley Professor of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights,
Boston University School of Public Health
Professor of Socio-Medical Sciences and Community Medicine,
Boston University School of Medicine

BA, Wellesley College
JD, Columbia University
LLM in Tax, New York University
MPH, Harvard University

Areas of Interest
Health Law
Contact
Biography

Professor Wendy Mariner’s research focuses on laws governing health risks, including social and personal responsibility for risk creation in conceptions of insurance, as well as national health systems, including the Affordable Care Act and ERISA, health information privacy, and population health policy.

She has published more than 100 articles in the legal, medical and health policy literature on patients and consumers’ rights, health care reform, insurance benefits, insurance regulation, public health, AIDS policy, research with human beings, and reproductive rights, and co-authored the law school textbook, Public Health Law (with Ken Wing, George Annas, and Dan Strouse). She also serves as a Program Chair of the Program in Health Law & Human Rights, a joint project with the Public Health Regulations Analysis Center of the National School of Public Health of the New University of Lisbon. Currently, she serves on the Health Information Exchange-Health Information Technology Council Advisory Committee for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and chairs its Legal and Policy Workgroup. She is also a member of the Council of the American Bar Association’s Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section.

Professor Mariner has served on state, national, and international boards and commissions, including the Massachusetts Health Facilities Appeals Board, the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council Advisory Committee, the National Institutes of Health’s AIDS Policy Advisory Committee, Institute of Medicine Study Committees, the CIOMS/WHO Steering Committee for the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, and the Executive Board of the American Public Health Association. Her university activities have included serving as Chair of the Boston University Faculty Council, Co-Director of Regulatory Knowledge and Research Ethics of Boston University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and legal director for the Boston University School of Public Health project providing technical assistance to the Russian Federation in developing health reform legislation.

She has served as contributing editor for health law and ethics for the American Journal of Public Health and currently sits on the editorial boards of Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law, the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, and Human Rights and the Global Economy. She and Professors Annas and Glantz have submitted amicus curiae briefs to the United States Supreme Court in cases involving health law issues, including the Affordable Care Act.

Publications
  1. Wendy Mariner, George Annas, Nicole Huberfeld & Michael Ulrich, Public Health Law, 3rd edition, Carolina Academic Press (2019).
  2. Wendy Mariner & Michael Ulrich, "Quarantine and the Federal Role in Epidemics," 71 Southern Methodist University Law Review 391 (2018).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  3. Wendy Mariner & George Annas, "(Public) Health and Human Rights in Practice," 41 Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 129 (2016).
    Publisher
  4. Wendy Mariner, "Beyond Lifestyle: Governing the Social Determinants of Health," 42 American Journal of Law and Medicine 284 (2016).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  5. Wendy Mariner & George Annas, "A Culture Of Health And Human Rights," 35 Health Affairs 1999 (2016).
    Publisher
  6. Wendy Mariner, "Reconsidering Constitutional Protection for Health Information Privacy," 18 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 975 (2016).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  7. Wendy Mariner & George Annas, "Informed Consent and the First Amendment," 372 New England Journal of Medicine 1285 (2015).
    Publisher
  8. Wendy Mariner, "The Picture Begins to Assert Itself: Rules of Construction for Essential Health Benefits in Health Insurance Plans Subject to the Affordable Care Act," 24 Annals of Health Law 437 (2015).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  9. Wendy Mariner, "Allocating Responsibility for Health Care Decisions under the United States Affordable Care Act," 32 Revista Portuguesa de Saúde Pública 144 (2014).
  10. Wendy Mariner, "Health Insurance is Dead; Long Live Health Insurance," 40 American Journal of Law and Medicine 195 (2014).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  11. Wendy Mariner, "Paternalism, Public Health, and Behavioral Economics: A Problematic Combination," 46 Connecticut Law Review 1817 (2014).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  12. Wendy Mariner & George Annas, Public Health Law, Second Edition, LexisNexis (2014).
  13. Wendy Mariner, "Did Legal Education Fail Health Reform? And How Health Law Can Help," 10 Indiana Health Law Review 1 (2013).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  14. Wendy Mariner & George Annas, "Limiting “Sugary Drinks” to Reduce Obesity — Who Decides?" 368 New England Journal of Medicine 1763 (2013).
    Publisher
  15. Wendy Mariner, "The Affordable Care Act and Health Promotion: The Role of Insurance in Defining Responsibility for Health Risks and Costs," 50 Duquesne Law Review 271 (2012).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  16. Wendy Mariner, "The Affordable Care Act Individual Coverage Requirement: Ways to Frame the Commerce Clause Issue," 21 Annals of Health Law 45 (2012).
    Publisher
  17. Wendy Mariner, Leonard Glantz & George Annas, "Reframing Federalism — The Affordable Care Act (and Broccoli) in the Supreme Court," 367 New England Journal of Medicine 1154 (2012).
    Publisher
  18. Wendy Mariner, George Annas & Leonard Glantz, "Can Congress Make You Buy Broccoli? And Why That's a Hard Question," 364 New England Journal of Medicine 201 (2011).
    Publisher
  19. Wendy Mariner & George Annas, "Women and Children Last — The Predictable Effects of Proposed Federal Funding Cuts," 364 New England Journal of Medicine 1590 (2011).
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  20. Wendy Mariner, George Annas & Paula Lobato de Faria, "Defining Health Law or the Edgewood Syndrome," 25 Revista Portuguesa de Saúde Pública 117 (2010).
    Publisher
  21. Wendy Mariner & George Annas, "Health Insurance Politics in Federal Court," 363 New England Journal of Medicine 1300 (2010).
    Publisher
  22. Wendy Mariner, "Health Reform: What’s Insurance Got to Do With It? Recognizing Health Insurance as a Separate Species of Insurance," 36 American Journal of Law and Medicine 436 (2010).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  23. Wendy Mariner, George Annas & Wendy Parmet, "Pandemic Preparedness: A Return to the Rule of Law," 1 Drexel Law Review 341 (2009).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  24. Wendy Mariner, "Toward an Architecture of Health Law," 35 American Journal of Law and Medicine 67 (2009). (Translated into Chinese and reprinted with permission in Collection of Translations in Health Law, Health Law Department, Capital Medical University, Beijing.)
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  25. Law and Ethics in Rationing Access to Care in a High-Cost Global Economy, Wendy Mariner & Paula Lobato de Faria, eds., Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2008).
  26. Wendy Mariner, "Legal Responsibility to Research Subjects: Liability and Compensation for Injury," in The Oxford Textbook of Clinical Research Ethics 682, Ezekiel Emanuel, Christine Grady, Robert Crouch, Reidar Lie, Franklin Miller & David Wendler, eds., Oxford University Press (2008).
  27. Wendy Mariner, "Medicine and Public Health: Crossing Legal Boundaries," 10 Journal of Health Care Law & Policy 121 (2008). (Reprinted in Sabitha A, ed., Public Health: Enforcement and Law, Amicus Books, Hyderabad, India. 2008.)
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  28. Wendy Mariner, "Social Solidarity and Personal Responsibility in Health Reform," in Law and Ethics in Rationing Access to Care in a High-Cost Global Economy 79, Wendy Mariner & Paula Lobato de Faria, eds., Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2008).
  29. Wendy Mariner, "Social Solidarity and Personal Responsibility in Health Reform," 14 Connecticut Insurance Law Journal 199 (2008).
    Publisher
  30. Wendy Mariner, "Law in the Name of Public Health: Ignoring Freedoms and Entitlements," in Progressive Lawyering, Globalization and Markets: Rethinking Ideology and Strategy 309, Clare Dalton, ed., William S. Hein & Co. (2007).
  31. Wendy Mariner, "Mission Creep: Public Health Surveillance and Medical Privacy," 87 Boston University Law Review 347 (2007).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  32. Wendy Mariner, Kenneth Wing, George Annas & Daniel Strouse, Public Health Law, First Edition, LexisNexis (2007).
  33. Wendy Mariner, "The Role of Law in Controlling Epidemics: Lessons from TB, HIV and SARS," in The Role of Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights to Promote a Safer and Healthier World 123, Paula Lobato de Faria, ed., Fundação Luso-Americana (2006).
  34. Wendy Mariner, James Sabin, Robert Fanelli, Helen Flaherty, Nawfal Istfan, Janet Nally Barnes, Janey S.A. Pratt, Laura Rossi & Patricia Samour, "Best Practice Guidelines on Informed Consent for Weight Loss Surgery Patients," 13 Obesity Research 250 (2005).
    Publisher
  35. Wendy Mariner, George Annas & Leonard Glantz, "Jacobson v Massachusetts: It’s Not Your Great-Great-Grandfather’s Public Health Law," 95 American Journal of Public Health 581 (2005).
    Publisher
  36. Wendy Mariner, "Law and Public Health: Beyond Emergency Preparedness," 38 Journal of Health Law 247 (2005).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  37. Wendy Mariner, "Can Consumer-Choice Plans Satisfy Patients? Problems with Theory and Practice in Health Insurance Contracts," 69 Brooklyn Law Review 485 (2004).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
  38. Wendy Mariner, "The Supreme Court's Limitation of Managed-Care Liability," 351 New England Journal of Medicine 1347 (2004).
    SSRN | Scholarly Commons
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