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U.S. Response: CDC Wants Quarantine Powers The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to allow states to enact quarantines in the event of a biological warfare attack, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said Tuesday. “If we did have an outbreak of smallpox, that would be, certainly, one of the avenues that we would have to quickly explore,” Thompson said. A biological warfare attack would force the government to create “concentric circles” of containment in order to inoculate people and prevent the spread of disease, he said. The CDC’s proposed emergency health powers act, developed with the National Governors Association and other groups, states that a person under quarantine would “obey the public health authority’s rules and orders.” Failure to obey would be a misdemeanor. The plan also would allow states to commandeer “appropriate property as necessary for the care, treatment and housing of patients” (Eunice Moscoso, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nov. 7). Other features of the plan would require pharmacies to report surges in prescriptions that might indicate a bioterrorism attack was underway and allow states to access health data and order medical examinations. Governors in many states already have limited quarantine powers, according to USA Today. The proposed act would broaden their authority into other areas, such as compulsory vaccinations. “Every state’s government needs to go back and make sure they have the necessary legal framework to address properly a large scale bioterrorism attack,” said Maryland’s Secretary of Health and Mental Hygiene Georges Benjamin (Larry Copeland, USA Today, Nov. 8). Mobilized National Guard units would enforce the CDC’s authority, said former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director James Witt. “If you look at something that’s really contagious, you can try to limit the area that it would be in as much as possible,” Witt said. He added that the real question, however, was: “How far would you go in containing it?” It is likely that people would attempt to evade restrictions in the event of quarantine, experts said. “What are your rules of engagement?” asked ANSER Institute of Homeland Defense Director Randy Larsen. Would a National Guard soldier, Larsen asked, shoot a grandmother trying to evade the quarantine? “You have to use all reasonable force to exercise that power,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University Center for Law and the Public Health. That could include lethal force, Gostin said (Seth Borenstein, Knight-Ridder/RealCities.com, Nov. 7). CDC Flush With Funds It’s never been easier for the CDC to obtain funding, said Georgia’s Senators Max Cleland (D) and Zell Miller (D). “It’s on the front burner big time because people realize the CDC is a national security agency now,” Cleland said. “It doesn’t just track flu in Philadelphia or diseases in Africa. It now is going to help us prevent major loss of life, but it’s got to be dramatically upgraded.” One of those upgrades is a new CDC headquarters, to which a Senate spending panel has allocated $250 million. President George W. Bush’s request was for $150 million, which would have finished construction in 10 years. The new money is expected to cut the construction time in half, according to TB & Outbreaks Week. The full Senate and House of Representatives must approve the additional funding and Bush must sign it, but Georgia’s senators said they are not worried. “There’s always been a small group in both the Senate and the House, and also those in federal agencies, who understood how important the CDC is, Miller said. “But I would say your average congressman did not. Now they do.” The CDC’s fiscal 2002 budget will total $4.4 million if all funding requests are approved, according to TB & Outbreaks Week. “We would have limped along, business as usual,” Cleland said. “Now four weeks later, we’ve got a record budget passed” (TB & Outbreaks Week, Nov. 6).
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