Holly Fernandez Lynch
Executive Director
Holly has been involved with the Center since its inception. She joined the inaugural cohort of fellows alongside current Faculty Directors, Glenn Cohen and Ben Roin, and under the leadership of Founding Director, Einer Elhauge, during which time she drafted the manuscript for Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care: An Institutional Compromise, published by MIT Press. Holly has also practiced law at Hogan & Hartson, LLP in Washington, DC (now Hogan Lovells), where she counseled pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients on complex regulatory matters involving the Food and Drug Administration. In addition, Holly has government experience as a bioethicist working with the Human Subjects Protection Branch at NIH's Division of AIDS, where she advised the Division, its clinical trial networks, and grant recipients on research ethics and human subjects regulatory issues arising in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and co-infection studies. Immediately prior to returning to Cambridge in 2011 to resume her position as Academic Fellow, Holly served as Senior Policy and Research Analyst for President Obama's Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a Levy Scholar in Law and Bioethics. While pursuing her law degree, Holly also earned her Master of Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Working with the Faculty Directors and administrative staff, Holly's primary goal and responsibility is to advance the Center's visibility and impact at Harvard and beyond, in both academic circles and the public square. In addition to advancing the Center's mission and supporting its faculty, fellows, students, and others, Holly will hold an appointment as Lecturer on Law at HLS. In Spring 2013, she will teach a seminar on Bioethics in the Courts. She will also continue to pursue independent scholarship in law and bioethics. Her work focuses on the regulation of human subjects research domestically and internationally, pharmaceutical development and regulatory policy, conflicts of conscience in both the medical and legal professions, conflicts of interest in health care, and the legal issues surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. Her current project draws connections between subjects in biomedical research and workers who are granted various protections by labor and employment law. Holly has also recently published on the historical and contemporary implications of the US Public Health Service's STD inoculation studies conducted in Guatemala in the mid-twentieth century.
Works in Progress
"Human Research Subjects as Human Research Workers" (law review article in progress).
Recent Publications
The Rights and Wrongs of Intentional Exposure Research: Contextualising the Guatemala STD Inoculation Study, J. Med. Ethics, Online First (Mar. 2012).
Ethical Evasion or Happenstance and Hubris? The US Public Health Service STD Inoculation Study, 42(2) Hastings Ctr. Rep. 30 (2012).
A Lesson from the Contraception Coverage Uproar? Rethink Employer-Based Insurance, Hastings Center Bioethics Forum (Feb. 2012).
Books and Chapters
Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care: An Institutional Compromise,
MIT Press (October 2008); paperback edition, September 2010
Conscientious Refusals by Physicians, in The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics, Vardit Ravitsky, Autumn Fiester, and Arthur Caplan, eds., Springer Publishing (March 2009)
Articles
Compliance with Advance Directives: Wrongful Living and Tort Law Incentives, 29 J. Leg. Med. 133 (2008), with Michelle Mathes and Nadia Sawicki.
Give Them What They Want? The Legal and Ethical Permissibility of Pediatric Placebo-Controlled Trials Requested by the FDA Under the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act, 16 Annals Health L. 79 (2007).
Short Essays
Adding Insult to Injury: Reluctance to Engage in Clinical Research with At-Risk Groups Further Disenfranchises These Populations,
9(11) Am. J. Bioethics 62 (2009), with Liza Dawson (open peer commentary).
Genetic Privacy, Abandonment, and DNA Dragnets: Is Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence Adequate?, 35 Hastings Ctr. Rep. 21 (2005).
Commentary
The Bush Administration's New Conscience Rule, The MIT PressLog (Dec. 2008).
Research and Teaching Interests
- Bioethics & Law
- Food & Drug Law
- Health Law & Policy
- Torts
- Professional Responsibility
- Administrative Law
- Contracts
Education
- University of Pennsylvania Law School, J.D., cum laude, 2006
Order of the Coif
Levy Scholar in Law and Bioethics
Legal Writing Honors
First Prize, Epstein, Becker & Green’s Annual Health Law Writing Competition (2006)
Third Prize, Epstein, Becker & Green’s Annual Health Law Writing Competition (2005)
Bioethics, Law, and Public Policy Society, Treasurer (2004-2005), President (2005-2006)
Associate Editor, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law
- University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Master of Bioethics, 2006
- University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences, B.A., summa cum laude, 2003
Benjamin Franklin Scholar
Dean’s List
Previous Experience
- 2010-2011, Senior Policy and Research Analyst, Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Presidential Advisory Committee)
- 2009-2010, Bioethicist, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, contracted to National Institutes of Health, Division of AIDS, Human Subjects Protection Branch
- 2007-2009, Associate, Hogan and Hartson, LLP
- 2006-2007, Academic Fellow, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics
