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Lawrence O. Gostin, J.D., LL.D (Hon.)

Lawrence Gostin is an internationally recognized scholar in law and public health. He is Professor of Law at Georgetown University; Professor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University; and the Director of the Center for Law & the Public’s Health at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities (CDC Collaborating Center “Promoting Public Health Through Law”) (http://www.publichealthlaw.net). He is also the Co-Director of the Georgetown/Johns Hopkins Program on Law and Public Health. Professor Gostin is Faculty Affiliate for the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and the Steering and Executive Committees of the Institute for Health Care Research and Policy of Georgetown. He is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University.

Professor Gostin is an elected lifetime Member of the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences (IOM/NAS). For the IOM/NAS, he serves on the Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, the Institutional Review Board, and three expert study committees, including the Committee on Assuring the Health of the Public in the 21st Century. He is also an elected lifetime Fellow of the Hastings Center. He is appointed by the Secretary for Health and Human Services to serve on the Advisory Council of the Office of AIDS Research, National Institutes of Health. Professor Gostin also consults for the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and the Council of International Organizations for Medical Sciences.

Professor Gostin is the Health Law and Ethics Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). He is also on the editorial board of scholarly journals, including the Yale J. on Regulation, Milbank Quart., Int’l J. of Bioethics, and the Int’l. J. of Health & Human Rights. Formerly, Professor Gostin was Editor-in-Chief of the J. of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Executive Editor of the American J. of Law & Med., and Western European Editor of the Int’l. J. of Law & Psychiatry.

Professor Gostin has lead major law reform initiatives for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (The Model State Public Health Information Privacy Law) and a consortium of states (The “Turning Point” Public Health Statute Modernization Project to draft a Model Public Health Law). In the wake of September 11th, 2001, he led the drafting of the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA) to combat bioterrorism and other emerging health threats. The MEHPA Act was drafted for the CDC in collaboration with the National Governors Association, National Association of Attorneys General, National Conference of State Legislatures, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, and the National Association of City and County Health Officers.

Professor Gostin was a member of the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform. His principal areas of work on the President's Task Force were on the ethical foundations of the new health care system, public health, and privacy (chair).

Professor Gostin was formerly Executive Director of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics and adjunct Professor of Law and Public Health at Harvard University. In the United Kingdom, Professor Gostin was the Chief Executive of the National Council for Civil Liberties, Legal Director of the National Association of Mental Health, and faculty member of Oxford University. Professor Gostin received the Rosemary Delbridge Memorial Award from the National Consumer Council (U.K.) for the person "who has most influenced Parliament and government to act for the welfare of society.” He also received the Key to Tohoko University (Japan) for distinguished contributions to human rights in mental health.

Professor Gostin has a J.D. from Duke University and Honorary Doctorate of Law conferred by the Chancellor of the State University of New York (system-wide). In 1974-75, Professor Gostin was a Fulbright Fellow at Oxford University and the Social Research Unit, University of London.

Professor Gostin’s latest books are both published by the University of California Press and the Milbank Memorial Fund: Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (2000) and Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (2002). He has another book forthcoming from the University of North Carolina Press: The AIDS Pandemic: Complacency, Injustice and Unfulfilled Expectations (2003).

Professor Gostin was a member of the President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform. His principal areas of work on the President's Task Force were on the ethical foundations of the new health care system, public health, and privacy (chair).

Professor Gostin was formerly Executive Director of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics and adjunct Professor of Law and Public Health at Harvard University. In the United Kingdom, Professor Gostin was the Chief Executive of the National Council for Civil Liberties, Legal Director of the National Association of Mental Health, and faculty member of Oxford University. Professor Gostin received the Rosemary Delbridge Memorial Award from the National Consumer Council (U.K.) for the person "who has most influenced Parliament and government to act for the welfare of society.? He also received the Key to Tohoko University (Japan) for distinguished contributions to human rights in mental health.

Professor Gostin has a J.D. from Duke University and Honorary Doctorate of Law conferred by the Chancellor of the State University of New York (system-wide). In 1974-75, Professor Gostin was a Fulbright Fellow at Oxford University and the Social Research Unit, University of London.

Professor Gostin's latest books are both published by the University of California Press and the Milbank Memorial Fund: Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (2000) and Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (2002). He has another book forthcoming from the University of North Carolina Press: The AIDS Pandemic: Complacency, Injustice and Unfulfilled Expectations (2003).