As I write this letter, we are putting the finishing touches on the final issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics’ 50th volume. We have used the Editor’s Letters in this volume to reflect and thank the many people who made JLME possible 50 years ago, the people who sustained it over five decades, and the individuals who continue to help us today. We are, as we have said, endlessly grateful to our founders, our editors, our authors, and our reviewers for the work that have done to build JLME into the publication it is today. We all recognize, however, that the most critical element in our existence and in our history has been you, our loyal readers and members of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics. Without you there would simply be no journal and no ASLME. As we leave 2022 and enter 2023, we will depend on our readers and members more than ever. We enter an age of uncertainty. In the real world COVID persists, the health care system in the United States remains profoundly broken, and injustice and disparities in health care remain as entrenched as ever. In our own more insular world of publishing, 2022 brought us a preview of the future, where almost everything JLME publishes will be open-access. (In 2022, for the first time in fifty years, the majority of articles published in our six issues were free and open-access for all.) This new world of publishing will bring fresh challenges to be sure, and we will not be able to successfully face them without the support of our members and readers. Thank you for everything you have done for us yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We are eternally thankful.
Let it not be said that we let our 50th year go out without a bang. We bring you two issues to close out the year. Our regular issue features the symposium “Health Justice: Engaging Critical Perspectives in Health Law and Policy,” guest edited by our longtime friends Lindsay F. Wiley, Ruqaiijah Yearby, Brietta R. Clark, and Seema Mohapatra. We also present a special supplemental issue featuring the symposium “Addressing Antimicrobial Resistance through the Proposed Pandemic Instrument,” guest edited by Steven J. Hoffman, Kevin Outterson, and Susan Rogers Van Katwyk. Both of these collections address profoundly important topics that will affect us all today and for many years in the future. Tellingly, both of these collections are open-access, reflecting their importance to both scholars and the general public around the world. We hope you enjoy these two issues as you join us for our next fifty years together.
