MinnDaily

Tuesday, November 6th 2001 State House considers new quarantine powers

Jessica Thompson - Staff Reporter

The state will have the power to forcefully quarantine citizens and pick who receives vaccines during public health emergencies if one state legislator has his way.

Despite concern the bill could threaten civil liberties, Rep. Tom Huntley, DFL-Duluth, announced legislation Monday to expand state government’s powers in the event of a bioterrorist attack, epidemic or outbreak of a highly infectious agent.

“This is controversial ... It’s an interplay between civil rights and public safety,” said Huntley, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University’s Duluth campus.

If passed, the Minnesota Emergency Health Powers Act would grant the governor power to declare a public health emergency under extreme circumstances.

During the state of emergency, the commissioner of health could use force to quarantine infected Minnesotans. Citizens opposed to the quarantine could request a judicial appeal but would not receive a trial until after the quarantine period.

The commissioner would also determine who receives vaccines during an emergency and could force certain health care facilities to house the quarantined people.

John Wodele, Gov. Jesse Ventura’s spokesman, said Ventura expects to review several bills combating bioterrorism but has not yet endorsed any specific legislation.

“I expect there will be a fair amount of proposed legislation allowing the executive branch to act in cases of emergency without the constraints of law,” Wodele said.

Huntley said in the past, citizens were often quarantined to prevent the spread of measles, smallpox and other communicable diseases. He said most quarantine laws were removed as communicable disease epidemics became less of a threat.

“It’s clear we could be subject to bioterrorist activities and this is an attempt to have the state prepared … our system is not adequate to handle an outbreak,” said Huntley.

Huntley said his bill “is based in fact, not fear.”

But in their testimony before a House joint committee, state officials said many citizens – bombarded with media reports of anthrax — are reacting with unnecessary hysteria.

“If we look at this as psychological warfare, I’d have to say (the terrorists) are getting an ‘A’ … we have people on the verge of panic and sectors of the government immobilized, and it’s all designed to break our will,” said state epidemiologist Harry Hull.

He said of the thousands exposed to anthrax in past weeks, only 17 were infected.

Hull was one of the leaders from the departments of Health, Public Safety and Military Affairs who testified before the joint meeting of the House Health and Human Services and Crime Prevention committees Monday.

State officials urged citizens not to panic and said state agencies are monitoring everything from drinking water to airplanes.

“In Minnesota we are way ahead when it comes to planning for terrorist attacks. We really are viewed nationally as leaders,” said Department of Public Safety Commissioner Charlie Weaver. “I am confident that any response to terrorism … will be swift, coordinated and effective.”

Wodele said federal officials have complimented Minnesota’s security measures since Sept. 11, but he said more work lies ahead.

“We can always do other things, and legislation like Huntley’s is one example,” Wodele said. “You can never be too prepared.”

Commissioner of Health Jan Malcolm could not be reached for comment. But at the hearing, Malcolm said Minnesota has “one of the strongest public health systems in the country.”

State officials are working with legislators to draft bills preparing for bioterrorism. Debate will begin at the start of the 2002 legislative session.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

Answers

That's just a state version of the Fema plan. Legislatures in Florida and Texas are considering, or may have passed the same types of bills. perhaps there are even more states doing this, but those are the two that I know of. It is scary.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

I thought the governor of Minnesota was supposed to be called Larry? Something about him wanting to be incognito...

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

Jesse Ventura incognito? Not physically possible, lol.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001

Vast quarantine role advocated for states

Plan would let agencies shut roads, cities during a biological terror attack

November 7, 2001

BY SETH BORENSTEIN FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

WASHINGTON -- In the event of a bio-terrorist attack using a deadly and contagious disease such as smallpox, public health officials want to be able to close roads and airports, herd people into stadiums, and, if necessary, quarantine entire infected cities.

To make that possible, 50 governors this week are to receive copies of a proposed law, drafted at the behest of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which could give states immense power to control their populations.

The proposed Model State Emergency Health Powers Act may be months or years away from enactment by state legislatures. It may be amended beyond recognition. But health officials say major new legislation is crucial to keep smallpox, plague or hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola from spreading in the event of a terror attack. Unlike anthrax, they are highly contagious.

As a general principle, the draft law says authorities could "require isolation or quarantine of any person by the least restrictive means necessary to protect the public health."

Broad quarantines envisioned in the draft have never been invoked in the United States. They raise all sorts of logistical, political and ethical questions in a mobile society, public health experts concede. But such quarantines also may save lives.

"If we don't do it, what would happen? I don't think we've got any choice but to quarantine," said Dr. Lew Stringer, medical director of North Carolina's special operations response team that handles disasters and bio-terror.

"The first thing you do is shut down the roads," he said. "Then you shut down the interstates, you shut down the schools, you shut down the businesses. You're shutting down essential services, not just nonessential ones."

Local governments need to practice plans for quarantines like fire drills to ensure they work in an emergency, said Dr. Scott Lillibridge, the bio-terrorism assistant to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

Thompson said Tuesday: "If we did have an outbreak of smallpox," a possible quarantine "would certainly be one of the avenues we'd have to explore."

CDC authorities and a state's governor would exercise their authority using mobilized National Guard units, said James Lee Witt, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Lawyers and public health professors at Georgetown University in Washington and at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore drafted the plan, in collaboration with representatives of governors, state and local health officials and state attorneys general.

Congress "should give public health authorities strong powers to be able to isolate or quarantine people if necessary for the public health," said the proposal's chief author, Lawrence Gostin, professor and director at the two universities' Center for Law and the Public's Health in Washington.

Many states already have quarantine laws, but they may not be constitutional, Gostin said. He said his proposal would probably pass constitutional muster because it lets detainees ask a judicial-medical board to get them out of quarantine.

In Michigan, there are legal provisions for the governor to declare a medical emergency and for state agencies to issue a quarantine, said Geralyn Lasher, spokeswoman for the state Department of Community Health.

Between the Public Health Code, she said, and the Emergency Management Act, "we have about all the areas covered" in case of a bio-terrorism attack and the need to issue a quarantine.

Gostin said the question of quarantines "is probably the biggest issue because it involves liberty of individuals in the public." He said the proposal would give officials authority to take control of hospitals or stadiums to house quarantined people.

But in the event of a quarantine, some people would likely evade restrictions and spread the infection elsewhere, experts said.

In one simulation, involving a fake plague that struck at a rock concert in Chicago, questions arose about what to do with people who insisted on breaking the quarantine, said Randy Larsen of the AnserInstitute, a security think-tank in Arlington, Va.

Would a National Guardsman, he asked, shoot a grandmother trying to evade quarantine?

Maybe, Gostin said. "You have to use all reasonable force." Sometimes, he added, that could mean lethal force.

-- Anonymous, November 07, 2001

One problem I have: what's to prevent some power-hungry local PD from locking up a group of citizens they don't like in the name of the quarantine?

-- Anonymous, November 07, 2001