Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-5r2nc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-30T23:27:14.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Authority in a Bioterror Emergency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Thomas May
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The events of September 11, 2001 have prompted significant concern to protect against future terror attacks, especially attacks that would involve the use of biological weapons - the most dangerous weapons of massdestruction considered accessible to terrorist groups and organizations. This concern, in turn, has led to a re-evaluation of the public health system and its preparedness to meet the challenges of treating a large number of people in circumstances of public fear and significant demand for resources. One important result of this re-evaluation has been the development of a Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA) that is designed to grant state officials the authority necessary to coordinate an effective response to biological tenor. The Model Act was first publicized in late October, 2001,and a revised version was publicized December21, 2001.As of October 1,2002,legislation based on the Act had been introduced in thirty-six states, and versions of the Act had been enacted in twenty states and the District of Columbia.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , Spring 2004 , pp. 159 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

See Falkenrath, R. Newman, R. Thayer, B., America’s Achilles’ Heel: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Studies in International Security (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001).Google Scholar
The Center for Law and the Public’s Health at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities, Model Public Health Laws, The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, at <http://publichealthlaw.net/Resources/Modellaws.htm> (last visited January 29, 2004).+(last+visited+January+29,+2004).>Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
See, e.g., Annas, G., “Bioterrorism, Public Health, and Civil Liberties,” N. Engl. J, Med. 346, no. 17 (2002): 1337–42;Blevins, S., “The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act: An Assault on Civil Liberties in the Name of Homeland Security,” available at: <http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/HL748.cfm> (last visited February 13, 2004);King, J., “Power Grab: The States in a State of Emergency The Model Emergency Health Powers Act,” available at: <www.alec.org/meSWFiles/pdf/0202.pdf> (last visited February 13, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See, e.g., Osterholm, M. Schwartz, J., Living Terrors (New York: Delacorte Press, 2000).Garrett, L., Betrayal of Trust (New York: Hyperion Press, 2000).Google Scholar
See O Toole, T. Mair, M. Inglesby, T., “Shining Light on ‘Dark Winter,’” Clinical Infectious Diseases 34 (2002): 972–83Bardi, J., “Aftermath of a Hypothetical Smallpox Disaster,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 5 (1999): 547. and O’Toole, T., “Smallpox: An Attack Scenario,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 5 (1999): 540–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gostin, L. Sapsin, J. Teret, S. et al. , “The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act,” JAMA 288 (2002): 622–628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Inglesby, T. Grossman, R. O’Toole, T., “A Plague on Your City: Observations from TOPOFF,” Clinical Infectious Diseases 32 (2001): 436–445.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Institute of Medicine, The Future of the Public’s Health in the 21st Century. Uncorrected proofs available in “open book” format via the internet at <http://www.nap.edu/books/030908704X/html/> (last visited February 13, 2004).+(last+visited+February+13,+2004).>Google Scholar
Id. at 109.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
Id. at 110.Google Scholar
Raz, J., The Morality of Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986): at 53.Google Scholar
Inglesby, Grossman, O’Toole, , supra note 9, at 439.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar
See Jacocobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905).Google Scholar
Joseph Raz, , The Morality of Freedom (NY: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 53.Google Scholar
Annas, George, “Bioterrorism, Public Health, and Civil Liberties,” New England Journal of Medicine 346, no. 17 (April 25, 2002), pp. 1337–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See Thomas May, , “On Raz and the Obligation to Obey the Law,” Law and Philosophy, vol. 16 (1997), pp. 19–36.The “revised dependence thesis” is also examined in the context of healthcare in Thomas May, Bioethics in a Liberal Society: The Political Framework of Bioethics Decision Making (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Raz, , supra note 15, at 41.Google Scholar
Id. at 244.Google Scholar
Gostin, Sapsin, Teret, , supra note 7, at 626.Google Scholar
Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, Section 405(c).Google Scholar
Inglesby, Grossman, O’Toole, , supra note 9, at 443.Google Scholar
Id.Google Scholar