Dictatorial Emergency Health Powers : We ALL need to pay attention immediately!!!!

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Dictatorial Emergency Health Powers

We ALL need to pay attention immediately!!!!

Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA) Could Turn Governors into

Dictators...

Fri, 28 Dec 2001

http://www.mercola.com/2001/dec/26/mehpa.htm

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:

It appears some very dangerous legislation is being prepared to be

implemented in the US.

If this legislation passes, in brief:

1 - You will have a mandatory vaccination or you will be charged with a

crime

2 - You will get a mandatory medical exam, or you will be charged with a

crime

3 - Doctors will give the exam or you will be charged with a crime

4 - Your property can be seized if there is 'REASONABLE CAUSE TO

BELIEVE " that it may pose a public health hazard... it can be burned or

destroyed and you will NOT have recourse or compensation.

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Action Step You can go to http://www.aapsonline.org/

and click on the Emergency Dictatorial Powers act in the left column.

Then click on the December 13th Action Alert which will provide

information on how to respond to your legislators on this issue.

Additional Resource http://www.publichealthlaw.net/

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Summary This Act would:

broaden government access to private medical records;

greatly weaken protections against the taking of private property

without compensation;

criminalize refusal to be conscripted for public service or to take

medical treatment;

potentially increase the risk of infection to many individuals on the

pretext of protecting the common good; subjugate scientific analysis and

deliberation to the raw assertion of political power;

greatly expand the power of government to interfere with commerce;

and protect state officials from sanctions against gross abuses of

power.

The government already has significant emergency powers as well as the

ability to convene a special session of the legislature. It is highly

inadvisable to completely suspend our delicate system of checks and

balances upon the word of a Governor that an emergency requires it.

This Act, in effect, empowers the Governor to create a police state by

fiat, and for a sufficient length of time to destroy or muzzle his

political opposition.

The most telling sentence is: " The public health authority shall have

the power to enforce the provisions of this Act through the imposition

of fines and penalties, the issuance of orders, and such other remedies

as are provided by law, but nothing in this Section shall be construed

to LIMIT specific enforcement powers enumerated in this Act. " Article

VIII Section 802.

It is unlikely that the vast expansion of governmental powers would be

restricted to combating a smallpox outbreak. Once the precedent is

established, it could be expanded to other types of " emergencies. "

This proposal violates the very principles that its author, Lawrence O.

Gostin, has previously outlined. His article recommends that " public

health authorities should bear the burden of justification and,

therefore, should demonstrate (1) a significant risk based on scientific

evidence; (2) the intervention's effectiveness by showing a reasonable

fit between ends and means; (3) that economic costs are reasonable; (4)

that human rights burdens are reasonable.... " (see JAMA

2000;283:3118-3122).

Background HHS Secretary Tommy is urging State legislatures to

adopt the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, prepared by the

Center for Law and the Public's Health at town and s Hopkins

Universities for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This Act grants unprecedented and unchecked powers to the Governors of

the 50 States. It can be downloaded from www.publichealthlaw.net.

It is likely that HHS will tie passage of the Act to billions of dollars

in federal funding: the usual method of bribery/coercion to get States

to pass legislation that would otherwise never be considered.

Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation said: " Tommy , whom

I have considered a friend for thirty years, should be ashamed of

himself for advocating this kind of Big Brother legislation. This is

not the Tommy we knew as a four-term governor of Wisconsin. "

HHS is using the 9/11 emergency as a pretext to rush passage of an Act

that has been in the works for more than a year. Its main author,

Lawrence O. Gostin, was a member of Clinton's Task Force on Health Care

Reform, whose secret documents were exposed to public view as a result

of the AAPS lawsuit (AAPS et al v. Hillary Rodham Clinton et al.)

He was a member of Working Group 17, Bioethics, of Cluster V, The

Ethical Foundations of the New System, and also a member of the informal

group promoting Single Payer.

This legislation is a serious threat to our civil liberties. Indeed,

" this law treats American citizens as if they were the enemy, "

stated s, chairman of the Health Law Department at the Boston

University School of Public Health (San Francisco Chronicle,

11/25/01). It must be exposed to the light of day in the next month and

a half.

Major Provisions Declaring an Emergency: Under this Act, any Governor

could appoint himself dictator by declaring a " public health emergency. "

He doesn't even have to consult anyone.

The Act requires that he " shall consult with the public health

authority, " but " nothing in the duty to consult ... shall be construed

to limit the Governor's authority to act without such consultation when

the situation calls for prompt and timely action. "

The legislature is prohibited from intervening for 60 days, after which

it may terminate the state of emergency only by a two-thirds vote of

both chambers. (Apparently, it does not have the authority to find that

the state of emergency never really existed.) Article III, Section

305©. There is also the possibility that the Governor could declare a

new emergency as soon as his powers were about to expire.

What is a public health emergency? It is whatever the Governor decides

it should be. By the definition in the Act, it could be an " occurrence "

- or just an " imminent threat " - of basically any cause that involves a

biological agent or biological toxin that poses a " substantial risk " of

a " significant number " of human fatalities or disability. Article I,

Section 104(g). Terrorism need not be involved; any threat of an

epidemic would suffice.

The Act does not define " substantial risk. " Could it mean a

1-in-1,000,000 chance? Risks of that magnitude are already being

invoked as a cause for alarm, say of a measles outbreak with

transmission through an unvaccinated child, and a pretext for removing

exemptions to mandatory vaccines. The EPA also uses such low (and

purely hypothetical) risk as the rationale for very costly regulations,

so the precedent is well-established.

Is a " significant number " five (the number of deaths from anthrax as of

the date of this writing); 24 (the number of deaths from chickenpox in

1998 and 1999 combined, 12 of them in persons under the age of 20, used

as a reason for mandatory childhood vaccination); 100 cases of AIDS; or

is it thousands of deaths from smallpox, as most readers may assume-or a

single case?

It could be any of these because the definition is at the sole

discretion of the Governor. The most plausible of the dire threats

generally cited is a smallpox outbreak.

However, given the nature of the disease and advanced medicine and

sanitation, such an outbreak could be contained without any of the

extreme measures in this Act, just as in the 1970s. (See, for example,

" Super Smallpox Saturdays? " by Arnold Glueck, M.D., and

J. Cihak, MD, http://WorldNetDaily.com, Nov. 15, 2001.)

Because of the adverse side effects of the vaccine (including death),

more harm than good could be done by a mass vaccination campaign.

Patient Privacy Abolished: The Act would impose significant new

reporting requirements on physicians and pharmacists, further

diminishing the confidentiality of medical records.

Personal identifying information would have to be reported in writing,

without patient consent, in the event of " an unusual increase " in

prescriptions related to fever, respiratory, or gastrointestinal

complaints that might represent an epidemic disease or bioterrorism, or

of any other illness or health condition that could represent

bioterrorism or epidemic or pandemic disease. Such conditions are

legion.

Gostin concedes that his privacy provision is based on his own model

privacy act of 1999, which apparently no state has adopted. Gostin's

view of privacy is to allow unrestricted disclosure to federal

authorities.

Section

506.

Unlimited Power: How would the Governor handle the emergency? By

whatever means he chose. He is under no obligation to use

scientifically valid methods, or to choose the least destructive method,

or to perform any kind of risk-benefit analysis.

He may suspend any regulatory statute, or the rules of any state agency,

if they would " prevent, hinder, or delay necessary action. "

Article III, Section 303(a)(1). Among the laws to be suspended would be

those permitting religious, medical, or philosophical exemptions to

mandatory vaccines.

The Governor may not only utilize all the resources of the State and its

political subdivisions, but commandeer any private facilities or

resources considered necessary, and " take immediate possession thereof.

Such materials and facilities include, but are not limited to,

communication devices, carriers, real estate, fuels, food, clothing, and

health care facilities. "

Article IV Section 402(a). He may " compel a health care facility to

provide services, " but it is not clear what means he may use to compel

its personnel to work (Article IV Section 402(), except that any

physician or other health care provider who refuses to perform medical

examination or testing as directed shall be liable for a misdemeanor.

Article V Section 502(.

The Governor may destroy any material or property " of which there is

reasonable cause to believe that it may endanger the public health. "

Article IV Section 401(. And while the State shall pay just

compensation to the owner of any facilities that are " lawfully taken " or

appropriated (Article IV Section 406), there is a huge exception:

" Compensation shall NOT be provided for facilities or materials that are

closed, evacuated, decontaminated, or destroyed when there is reasonable

cause to believe that they may endanger the public health pursuant to

Section 401. " Article IV Section 406.

The Governor is in charge of determining " reasonable cause. " There is a

strong incentive for him to declare any losses to private owners to be

noncompensable.

" Reasonable cause " might mean " contaminated. " Is the Senate Hart Office

Building contaminated with anthrax? Yes. Should it therefore be

destroyed, or subjected to fumigation with chemicals that would destroy

much of the equipment and furnishings? Most think not.

The problem is that given a sufficiently sensitive testing method,

everything is probably " contaminated " with almost everything else.

Moreover, every testing method has some level of false positives.

The late Conrad Chester of Oak Ridge National Laboratory stated that any

place that has ever supported cattle has anthrax contamination (lecture

before Doctors for Disaster Preparedness annual meeting,

1996). The same applies to any land that has supported sheep or goats,

or any land that has had the wind deposit soil from such an area.

In other words, anthrax spores are probably everywhere, though at a

concentration that very rarely causes any harm. Such harm as was done

may have been misdiagnosed by physicians who were unfamiliar with

anthrax and not specifically looking for it.

Under this law, nothing would stop the Governor from ordering a citizen

to turn over his house to be used as an isolation facility, and later

destroying the house on the grounds that it is contaminated.

This order could be enforced at gunpoint by any law enforcement officer.

In a time of public hysteria, fanned by press coverage based on the " if

it bleeds, it leads " policy, common sense is likely to be an early

casualty. It is even possible that terrorists could deliberately raise

a false alarm and influence a Governor to take action that would result

in more damage to freedom than the terrorists themselves could ever

accomplish.

Or radical environmentalists (who haven't, to date, generally had the

label of terrorist applied to them) could bring about the destruction of

an activity that they object to (such as logging, cattle ranching, or

modern farming). There are no checks and balances in this Act to

prevent such an occurrence, and no meaningful accountability for the

public officials who carry out a basically misguided policy, however

destructive.

Command and Control: The Act assumes that the best method to use in an

emergency is force and central control. There is no evidence that force

works better than leadership, which can bring out the best in citizens

coming together to meet the crisis, just as firefighters, police,

medical professionals, hotel owners, and other businessmen did in New

York City.

Totalitarianism is not only evil but has had uniformly disastrous

results.

The Act empowers the Governor to ration, fix prices, and otherwise

control the allocation, sale, use, or transportation of any item as

deemed " reasonable and necessary for emergency response. " Moreover, the

Governor can simply seize such items. Article IV Section 402(a).

The Act grants Governors the exclusive power to control the expenditure

of funds appropriated for emergencies; the intent and priorities set by

the Legislature would be irrelevant.

The Governor may delegate powers at his sole discretion to unelected

political appointees.

Criminalizing Refusal of Medical Treatment: The Act empowers the public

health authority to decide upon medical treatment or immunizations and

to impose its view on individuals, who are liable for a misdemeanor

should they refuse.

Article V Section 504(. Although it might in some circumstances be

prudent and justified to quarantine a person who refuses immunization

during an outbreak, it is tyrannical to criminalize the medical choice

to decline a treatment.

An immunization or treatment might well cause serious harm to certain

individuals even if the public health authority does not recognize that

it is " reasonably likely " to lead to " serious harm " - another two

important undefined terms. Article V Section

504(a)(4).

The Act gives the public health authority the right to isolate or

quarantine a person on an ex parte court order, with no hearing for at

least 72 hours. If the public health authority decides that an

unvaccinated person is a risk to others, even if uninfected, he could be

quarantined.

Article V Section 503(e). It is quite possible that public health

authorities could force such a person from his home to a place of

quarantine, where he will be exposed to infected persons. Such places

shall be maintained in a safe and hygienic manner " to the extent

possible, " and " all reasonable means shall be taken to prevent the

transmission of infection among isolated or quarantined individuals. "

Article V Section 503(a). The Act itself thus implies that an

uninfected person is at risk by being placed in such a facility; it is

quite likely that he could be at greater risk than if he had the freedom

to stay in his own home and protect himself as he saw fit.

Even now, children not vaccinated against hepatitis B are being excluded

from school even though there is NO risk that an uninfected child can

transmit the disease and a minuscule risk that he can acquire the

disease at school.

Zero Accountability: If the State does more harm than good through

unfettered use of its draconian power, it can rely on the state immunity

clause:

" Neither the State, its political subdivisions, nor, except in cases of

gross negligence or willful misconduct, the Governor, the public health

authority, or any other State official referenced in this Act, is liable

for the death of or any injury to persons, or damage to property, as a

result of complying with or attempting to comply with this Act or any

rule or regulations promulgated pursuant to this Act. " Article VIII

Section 804.

Note that the law would grant certain immunities even for deaths

improperly caused, and allows such immunity even for advisors who made

recommendations based on conflicts of interest.

Conclusions States can and should improve their ability to respond to

disaster, including bioterrorism. However, having the Governor play

doctor and dictator is not the right response. Citizens should

distribute information about the actual content of the Model Emergency

Health Powers Act to opinion leaders, newspaper editors, columnists, the

Chamber of Commerce, business groups, medical society officials,

legislators, and the Bush Administration.

http://www.mercola.com/2001/dec/26/mehpa.htm

Health, Hope, Joy & Healing :

May you Prosper, even as your Soul Prospers 3 2

Ruby

Email advice is not a substitute for medical treatment.

SymphonicHealth

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