Abstract
On December 13, 2016, former President Barack Obama signed into law the 21st Century Cures Act. This Act was one of the few bipartisan efforts of the Obama presidency, and politicians from both sides of the aisle claimed that this law would usher in a new era of drug and device progress. As with many bold claims about laws and policies, astute scholars from various disciplines questioned the true impact this new law would have. A year after the Act went into effect, the American Journal of Law & Medicine invited a select group of law and policy experts to present, discuss, and debate the merits of this new law at our annual Symposium. Each expert conducted research and analysis on an aspect of the Act, presenting their conclusions with everything from indifference and disappointment to optimism and excitement.
In this special double issue, you will find articles penned by some of the preeminent thought-leaders for their respective fields. Though each article stems from the 21st Century Cures Act, topics in this issue include real-world evidence, machine learning, data privacy, crime, regenerative medicine, the opioid crisis, and other complex policy issues of our time. This issue has both old and new faces, but between them all there are hundreds of years of experience dealing with the topics the 21st Century Cures Act addresses.
We at the American Journal of Law & Medicine are proud to present the work of our esteemed authors and sincerely hope you will find this issue both provocative and informative. Though health care and health law in this country is ever-changing, we believe that this issue will be the seminal body of work for the 21st Century Cures Act going forward.