Current Issue: Volume 94, Issue 2 (May 2010)

Right Question, Wrong Answer:

A Response to Professor Epstein and the "Permititis" Challenge

By: Ralph F. Hall

In this Response to Professor Epstein’s Against Permititis: Why Voluntary Organizations Should Regulate the Use of Cancer Drugs, Professor Hall argues that while he agrees with Professor Epstein’s assessment of the problems with the FDA drug approval process, he disagrees with his proposed solution. Professor Hall argues that Professor Epstein’s solution—to reduce the FDA to an advisory/information role after Phase I testing—devalues the mission of the FDA and has already been rejected by the body politic. Instead, Professor Epstein contends that the solution to problems with the FDA drug approval process is to work to improve and optimize the system, not to eliminate it.

On Silence:

A Reply to Professors Cribari and Judges

By: Ted Sampsell-Jones

In this Reply, Professor Sampsell-Jones responds to Professors Cribari and Judges. He argues that their theory of the Self-Incrimination Clause, which relies on intuition to determine which practices are necessary to “test the prosecution” in criminal cases, is lacking in both textual support and practical utility. As a result, he concludes that their defense of Griffin v. California is unconvincing.

In Defense of Intellectual Property Anxiety:

A Response to Professor Fagundes

By: Aaron K. Perzanowski

In this Response to Professor Fagundes’s Property Rhetoric and the Public Domain, Professor Perzanowski expresses skepticism about two assumptions underlying the argument for embracing property rhetoric to promote the public domain. This argument assumes, first, public recognition of social discourse theory as an account of property and, second, rhetorical advantages of social discourse theory that are comparable to those of more familiar notions of private property. Perzanowski concludes that the simple intuitive appeal of Blackstonian property cautions against styling the struggle for balanced copyright and patent policy as a debate over competing property interests.