Legal aspects of flu pandemic are pondered
http://www.insidebayarea.com/localnews/ci_3757170
MILLBRAE — On Day 5 of a deadly flu outbreak,
there's no margin for error.
If missteps are made within those first several days,
it could make the difference between containing a flu
outbreak, or helplessly watching it fan into the
much-feared influenza pandemic.
That was the conclusion of about 200 health and
legal experts assembled at the Clarion Hotel Wednesday
for a now-commonplace gathering:
a flu pandemic planning session by those in charge of
controlling an outbreak should it arise.
Companies with affected employees would temporarily
shut down, schools might close their doors, and
federal health officials would jet into town to
help control the outbreak and screen foreign travelers.
Hospitals could face a run on their services and supplies,
and public health workers would be working themselves
to exhaustion. Patients would be kept in isolation,
and all those potentially exposed kept under quarantine.
The scene-setting session at the all-day conference
gave a flavor of the extraordinary social, health,
economic and political upheaval a full-blown pandemic
would cause. Laced throughout the talk was consideration
of the legal rights of health officials in containing
outbreaks, and those of citizens faced with
privacy violations.
To confine the outbreak to just these unfortunate few,
health officials would have to move swiftly, invoking
laws rarely used since polio and smallpox outbreaks
in the first half of the 20th century.
"These legal tools haven't been dusted off in
50, 60 years," said Iton, who also has a law degree.
"We're also in an era of civil liberties," Iton added.
"The balance of power has shifted much, much further
away from government power, and much more toward
individual liberties, which is not a bad thing."
What it does mean, he emphasized, is that citizens
need to understand why public health officers,
in the event of a deadly flu outbreak,
may act in ways that seem draconian.
"When there's a legitimate need for the use of
government power, we have to re-acquaint our
communities with why" the power is being exercised,
Iton said.
One of the first rights to be compromised might
be that of medical privacy, as health officials
seek details about infected patients. To serve
a public health interest, a public health officer
such as Iton is authorized to override certain
provisions of federal and state medical privacy laws,
said Brenda Carlson, deputy counsel for San Mateo County.
While public health officials can require treatment
and examination of those suspected of carrying
an infection threatening to public health,
no one can force someone to get an inoculation
without a court order. And if someone refuses
an examination or treatment, it also can't be forced
without a court order.
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You can bet Rumsfeld, former CEO of Gilead,
will have a court order to force you
to take 'courses' of Gilead's Tamiflu.
Black Death: Political and Social Changes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/welfare/blacksocial_01.shtml
Life in Britain in the fourteenth century was
'nasty, brutish and short', and it had been
that way for the peasantry since long before
the Black Death. Britain in the early fourteenth
century was horrendously overpopulated.
This was very good for the land-owning classes,
since it meant that they had a vast reserve of
inexpensive manpower upon which they could draw.
We can see in the example of Farnham the
immediate consequence of the plague:
a slash in the cost of livestock and inflation
in the cost of labour. This pattern was repeated
up and down the country. The immediate reaction
of the elite was to legislate against this.
The Ordinance of Labourers was published
on 18th June 1349, limiting the freedom of peasants
to move around in search of the most lucrative work.
This was promulgated through Parliament as
the Statute of Labourers in 1351:
It was lately ordained by our lord king,
with the assent of the prelates, nobles
and others of his council against the
malice of employees, who were idle
and were not willing to take employment
after the pestilence unless for outrageous
wages, that such employees, both men
and women, should be obliged to take
employment for the salary and wages
accustomed to be paid in the place
where they were working in the 20th year
of the king's reign [1346], or five or
six years earlier; and that if the same
employees refused to accept employment
in such a manner they should be punished
by imprisonment, as is more clearly
contained in the said ordinance.
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