Regulating Systemic Risk: Towards an Analytical Framework

The global financial crisis demonstrated the inability and unwillingness of financial market participants to safeguard the stability of the financial system. It also highlighted the enormous direct and indirect costs of addressing systemic crises after they have occurred, as opposed to attempting to prevent them from arising. Governments and international organizations are responding with measures intended to make the financial system more resilient to economic shocks, many of which will be implemented by regulatory bodies over time. These measures suffer, however, from the lack of a theoretical account of how systemic risk propagates within the financial system and why regulatory intervention is needed to disrupt it. In this Article, we address this deficiency by examining how systemic risk is transmitted. We then proceed to explain why, in the absence of regulation, market participants cannot be relied upon to disrupt or otherwise limit the transmission of systemic risk. Finally, we advance an analytical framework to inform systemic risk regulation

Management of a Type I Hypersensitivity Reaction to IV Etoposide in a Woman with a Yolk Sac Tumor: A Case Report

Type I hypersensitivity reactions to intravenous administration of etoposide are extremely rare. Etoposide is an essential component of several chemotherapy regimens used in gynecologic oncology, and discontinuation of this drug during a course of treatment should only be due to severe patient intolerance. We report the successful use of intravenous etoposide phosphate as a substitute drug in a patient with a yolk sac tumor who manifested a Type I hypersensitivity to intravenous etoposide. The patient ultimately completed all 4 cycles of bleomycin, etoposide, cisplatin (BEP) using etoposide phosphate as a substitute drug

New Data Security Requirements and the Proceduralization of Mass Surveillance Law after the European Data Retention Case

This paper discusses the regulation of mass metadata surveillance in Europe through the lens of the landmark judgment in which the Court of Justice of the European Union struck down the Data Retention Directive. The controversial directive obliged telecom and Internet access providers in Europe to retain metadata of all their customers for intelligence and law enforcement purposes, for a period of up to two years. In the ruling, the Court declared the directive in violation of the human rights to privacy and data protection. The Court also confirmed that the mere collection of metadata interferes with the human right to privacy. In addition, the Court developed three new criteria for assessing the level of data security required from a human rights perspective: security measures should take into account the risk of unlawful access to data, and the data’s quantity and sensitivity. While organizations that campaigned against the directive have welcomed the ruling, we warn for the risk of proceduralization of mass surveillance law. The Court did not fully condemn mass surveillance that relies on metadata, but left open the possibility of mass surveillance if policymakers lay down sufficient procedural safeguards. Such proceduralization brings systematic risks for human rights. Government agencies, with ample resources, can design complicated systems of procedural oversight for mass surveillance - and claim that mass surveillance is lawful, even if it affects millions of innocent people

Eosinophilic Pleural Effusion: A Rare Manifestation of Hypereosinophilic Syndrome

Several causes of eosinophilic pleural effusions have been described with malignancy being the commonest cause. Hypereosinophilic syndrome (HES) is a rare disease and very few cases have been reported of HES presenting as eosinophilic pleural effusion (EPE). We report a case of a 26-year-old male who presented with shortness of breath. He had bilateral pleural effusions, generalized lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly, and leukocytosis with marked peripheral blood eosinophilia. The pleural fluid was exudative, with 25%–30% eosinophilis, and absence of neoplastic cells. Hypereosinophilic syndrome was diagnosed after other causes of eosinophilia were excluded. He continued to be dyspneic with persistent accumulation of eosinophilic pleural fluid, even after his peripheral eosinophil count had normalized in response to treatment. This patient represents a very unusual presentation of HES with dyspnea and pleural effusions and demonstrates that treatment based on response of peripheral eosinophil counts, as is currently recommended, may not always be clinically adequate