Published on the first generation Federal Observer, in the category, To Health With You!, November 6, 2001 This was the 787th column posted within just over three months of the site’s existence. We were WARNED – nearly 20 years ago! … and so the games continue! ~ Editor

Patients could be forced to take medicines or receive vaccines for contagious diseases that pose a public health threat, such as smallpox, under the model law. Patients wouldn’t be allowed to appeal a state’s decision, though the state would likely quarantine anyone who refused to comply, triggering an appeals process…

If the Bush administration’s seeming incompetence in handling the anthrax issue and tendency to issue conflicting statements generating confusion and panic in the public has you puzzled, perhaps this may shed a bit of light on what they are actually up to. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) has drafted a model law which will require forced vaccinations of all Americans, imprisonment and quarantine of those who refuse to submit to vaccination, seizure of property and other drastic measures.

Vaccination is one of the most controversial aspects of medicine. While the official position of the medical establishment is that vaccination is a foundation of public health policy, thousands of doctors and hundreds of millions of people worldwide consider it to be a leading cause of disease, neurological damage, learning disabilities and death and to be ineffective in conferring immunity.

The Bush administration has numerous direct ties to vaccine and drug manufacturers and many of Bush’s cabinet members are former drug company executives. The Bush family also has more than a seventy year long documented involvement with eugenics and population control.

DRUG INDUSTRY A Muscular Lobby Tries to Shape Nation’s Bioterror Plan

An excerpt from this long article…..

“As that success shows, the pharmaceutical lobby, which represents the nation’s biggest drug makers, from Eli Lilly to Pfizer to Merck, is both large and politically adroit and, if anything, more sophisticated than when it gained fame in the early 1990’s for helping to defeat the Clinton administration health plan. It has more lobbyists than there are members of Congress – 625 who are registered. It had a combined lobbying and campaign contribution budget in 1999 and 2000 of $197 million, larger than any other industry.

Now it is harnessing those resources to influence major policy decisions being made by the Bush administration that may well influence public health issues and industry profitability for years to come – much to the dismay of many consumer groups and others… Because of the anthrax scare, and all the attention given to Cipro, the anti-anthrax drug of choice, that access has been enormous. In recent weeks, the chief executives and other top executives of Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Bayer, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson, along with trade association officials, have been meeting regularly with Bush cabinet members.

On one occasion, with executives from other industries, pharmaceutical executives met with President Bush in New York to discuss the administration’s response to terrorism. Drug company executives have offered to send scores of industry scientists, now on their payrolls, to work in government agencies in what the industry calls a gift to the nation, but critics say it is both a conflict of interest and a way for the industry to get a toehold in government.

In return, at these top-level meetings, industry executives and lobbyists are seeking exemption from antitrust regulations, reduction of the timetable for getting new drugs to market for treating the ills of biological warfare, and immunity from lawsuits for any vaccines they develop to combat bioterrorism.

The administration, those in the meeting say, has offered other help, asking the pharmaceutical executives to identify the regulatory barriers they would like to see eliminated for this fight. Last Wednesday, for instance, a dozen industry lobbyists and executives, among them Peter R. Dolan, chief executive of Bristol-Myers, and Raymond V. Gilmartin, chief executive of Merck, met for an hour and a half in the Roosevelt Room of the White House with Tom Ridge, the director of homeland security.

According to one person at the meeting, Mr. Ridge was so impressed with what the industry executives said that he responded: “I’m grateful for your offers of assistance. I accept.” That, according to the meeting’s participant, reflected “a true partnership between the federal government and America’s pharmaceutical companies.”

From CNN.com: CDC releases draft of public health law
ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) – A model law drafted for states at the request of the federal government would give authorities broad powers to close buildings, take over hospitals and order quarantines during a biological attack.

The draft, commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and made public Tuesday, provides a template for states to respond to the release of a deadly agent like smallpox or Ebola. Whether to adopt such a law is up to state legislatures. If any did, state officials could take drastic steps – including controlling the sale of food and gas and condemning contaminated buildings – to prevent mass casualties from an outbreak.

“The current laws are hopelessly antiquated,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of law and public health at Georgetown University and the draft’s principal author.  “They predated all of the modern threats to the public health. Many of them are probably unconstitutional.”

Even before September 11, the federal government wanted states to update their public health laws, some of which date to the 19th century.

The CDC asked public health and law specialists at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown universities, who were writing the draft, to put it on a fast track because of the terrorist attacks and the anthrax outbreak. The 40-page draft would allow state public health officials to purchase as many drugs as they see fit and ration them without getting approval from other branches of government.

It also would give state authorities the right to mandate medical testing of its citizens, to isolate people deemed a threat to the public health and to order private doctors to do the testing. In a bioterrorism emergency, states could seize hospitals, other property and “communication devices” they believe are necessary to stop a biological attack from killing huge numbers of people.

The draft tries to head off the concerns of civil liberties groups over governmental control. It says citizens have the right to the review of a court if they object to being forced into quarantine or ordered to take a vaccine. The law would be triggered by the governor in the event of bioterrorism or an epidemic that poses a substantial risk of significant fatalities.

Because anthrax isn’t contagious, the current response has been chiefly about tracking the germ, treating the infected and distributing antibiotics. A more contagious and deadly agent, such as smallpox or Ebola virus, would require a much broader – and faster – response, possibly including mass vaccinations and quarantining entire communities.

The draft has been delivered to the CDC for tinkering. State government associations, including the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures, also collaborated.”

States would be able to force patients to take medication under model legislation outlining when and how governors can use emergency powers to address public health crises such as recent anthrax attacks. The model law, commissioned by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also would give people the right to appeal states’ decisions to quarantine or isolate them. Individuals with contagious diseases, such as smallpox, wouldn’t be able to appeal orders for treatment or vaccination under the law.

State governments are concerned that laws are inadequate to address new kinds of public health threats such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on buildings in New York and Washington or the use of germ or chemical weapons. Fifteen Americans have been infected with anthrax, a deadly bacterial disease, and thousands more are taking antibiotics as a precaution. Lawrence Gostin, chief author of the model law and a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said the academic panel that drafted the proposal tried to balance the need to control disease with individuals’ civil rights – something he said isn’t done under many current state laws. “We felt if we were too Draconian and didn’t respect people’s rights, that meant the terrorists would win,” Gostin said.

Emergency powers allow governors to suspend normal government temporarily, letting states swiftly address disease epidemics or natural disasters such as earthquakes. Legal and public health experts at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University examined all states’ emergency-powers laws in crafting the model.

Under the model law, states could quarantine or isolate individuals who are infected with a contagious disease, though the patients would have the right to appeal that decision in court. The patient would remain quarantined or isolated until the appeals process was exhausted, Gostin said.

Patients could be forced to take medicines or receive vaccines for contagious diseases that pose a public health threat, such as smallpox, under the model law. Patients wouldn’t be allowed to appeal a state’s decision, though the state would likely quarantine anyone who refused to comply, triggering an appeals process, Gostin said.

States would avoid civil liberties violations if they enact laws that spell out penalties such as the loss of public benefits, instead of incarceration, for patients who refuse treatment, said R. Alta Charo, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Robert Lederman for the New York Times, November 6, 2001