Posted on 10/29/2014 12:34:24 PM PDT by Kaslin
In a 1993 decision upholding the involuntary hospitalization of a Newark man with tuberculosis, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Donald Goldman noted that "the claim of 'disease' in a domestic setting has the same kind of power as the claim of 'national security' in matters relating to foreign policy." Goldman's point is worth keeping in mind as states such as New York and New Jersey implement quarantine policies that most experts view as a panicky overreaction to the potential threat posed by medical workers returning from Africa after treating Ebola patients.
Abuse of the authority to restrict liberty in the name of disease control, Goldman wrote, "is of special concern when the other interest involved is the confinement of a human being who has committed no crime except to be sick." We should be even more vigilant when the people whom the government seeks to confine are neither sick nor contagious.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie initially claimed that Kaci Hickox, the nurse who last Friday became the first person to be forcibly isolated under that state's new policy, was "obviously ill." But by Monday, when Hickox was released from University Hospital in Newark after repeatedly registering a normal temperature and testing negative for Ebola, Christie had to concede she was not sick, meaning she currently poses no threat to other people.
Hickox was nevertheless sent back to Maine, where she lives, for three weeks of home confinement. The same fate awaits other health care workers who arrive in New Jersey or New York after interacting with Ebola patients.
In an open letter to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, more than 100 AIDS activists, clinicians, scientists and academics urge him to reconsider that requirement, which they say is medically unjustified and counterproductive because it is apt to deter health care workers from going to Africa, where they are desperately needed to help control Ebola at its source. "There is no evidence that indicates quarantines are superior to active monitoring for symptoms with respect to preventing transmission of (Ebola)," they write.
That observation could be legally significant, because courts often ask whether a public health intervention is "the least restrictive alternative." They also commonly demand "clear and convincing evidence" that a person whom the government seeks to confine poses a threat to the public.
In the 1993 New Jersey case, for example, Judge Goldman emphasized that the TB patient was actively contagious, that he had repeatedly failed to comply with treatment, and that he was homeless, which in the judge's view made confinement to a hospital the least restrictive alternative. Asymptomatic health care workers such as Hickox are not contagious, and they should be highly motivated to comply with monitoring protocols. Furthermore, the Ebola virus, unlike the tubercle bacillus, is not transmitted by air.
Those factors should weigh in favor of a legal challenge to excessively stringent Ebola quarantine policies. Yet most commentators seem to think such a challenge, which Hickox threatened to bring, is unlikely to succeed.
"Being physically confined by the government feels like a fundamental violation," writes CNN legal analyst Danny Cevallos. "But it's rarely a legal violation." Northwestern University law professor Eugene Kontorovich reports that he "found no cases in which a quarantine has been lifted (on) due process grounds," although "there have been some successful challenges to conditions of quarantine."
Then again, when was the last time state governments sought to quarantine an entire class of asymptomatic, noncontagious people? "I'm very worried about it," said Georgetown University law professor Lawrence Gostin, who signed the open letter to Cuomo, in an interview with The New York Times. "And I'm one who thinks that we should always privilege public health. I'm not a civil libertarian."
As Gostin's concerns demonstrate, conceding that force can be justified in preventing the spread of communicable disease does not mean it always is. And if the courts do not step in when it isn't, who will?
The science on Quarantines is over 100 years old and is proven time and time again....
The Science on Gore-Bull Warming is only 30-40 years old and dubious at best...
But hey the science that a Quantine works is not “settled enough” for the crazy open border morons ...
I’d much rather have a “panicky overreaction” that inconveniences someone for 21 days, than an underreaction that spreads a highly terminal illness, ends up costing lives, costs hospitals $500,000 per patient, and increases public fear of using public transportation systems.
Nigeria apparently stopped the obola in their country by CLOSING THEIR BORDERS....but the big important American faker in chief is just too smart to have to do that....afterall, we're just Americans, most of us white Christians, so why should he care....
I would like Mr. Sullum to define precisely when a person carrying the Ebola virus becomes contagious together with the indications that said individual must then self-quarantine. I want him to tell me precisely at what point in the course of infection the first viral particle leaves the human colon.
I'll bet that nobody knows the answer to that question. Hence the abundance of caution that obliterates Mr. Sullum's argument.
It’s been only about three generations back since quarantines were common in the US and people complied. Families quarantined their own sick members.
But now some Americans are so spoiled and irresponsible that they act like a three week quarantine is a five year prison sentence. Even more amazing that several supposedly trained health care workers have led the way in violating quarantines and common sense.
“Asymptomatic health care workers such as Hickox are not contagious, and they should be highly motivated to comply with monitoring protocols.”
You mean like the doc in NYC who lied about his activities? Or, maybe the nurse in Maine who says she doesn’t have to comply with protocols.
You see this health care professionals think they know all.
Haven't heard any of the feds in Obama's administration using that once often heard phrase. And an abundance of caution is exactly what competent leadership at every level would be using when dealing with a virus with a 70% mortality rate. And they do not know for certain how ebola is transmitted.
Reckless and irresponsible 'leadership' what has put political considerations before public health.
Agree. The military has announced a 21 day quarantine and they most likely have more updated INFO on Ebola as Africa has or at least had a major command there. This president is a damn idiot sending a US Infantry Division to Africa to fight Ebola. He is a damn MAD idiot. This is not the mission of any US Army infantry Division period. I do not care if they are air assault, airborne, Mech, or whatever, this is not their job.
Correct. The level of confidence portrayed about the epidemiology and control of this virus is appalling, especially considering its rate of mutation.
There was a half-decent science fiction movie years ago, called Lifeforce (1985), in which London, England, had been overrun with “life force” consuming “vampires”.
But it had been discovered that when a person was consumed and died, after a given length of time, they would reanimate from a dessicated corpse and become a vampire themselves, desperate to consume the life force of others. If they couldn’t feed, they would disintegrate to dust.
Well, at one point, there was a military compound set up outside of London, and anyone who tried to get in was put in a compound under armed guard, to wait out the incubation period.
And in all fairness, this was an accurate representation of the seriousness of quarantine. As long as the quarantine is in effect, no one leaves the quarantine area *or they are shot*.
This is the old rule. And it is a good one. And it still applies today.
Few people have ever seen a real, lethal epidemic. But only a fool ignores that they exist. This being said this whiny nurse should be told that unless they obey the quarantine, they are subject to imprisonment, and if they flee, they can be shot on site as a public menace no different from a rabid dog.
From what I'm gathering, she's not a nursing nurse....but collects data and writes papers. We've all dealt with a b**** like her.
I noticed that Doctors without borders turned her down earlier....Why??....no medical experience.
Click the pic.
ONE patient is all it takes to shut down a hospital. Look at Bellevue: http://patdollard.com/2014/10/nys-bellevue-hospital-so-consumed-with-ebola-care-forced-to-transfer-icu-patients-to-other-hospital/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
And the mainstream media talk about this like it’s a problem with “for-profit medical care.” Bad hospital. Bad! Bad! You don’t want to take care of Ebola-infected patients because of the cost.
It is costing a million dollars to take care of ONE single patient.
AND they close the ICU because THAT’s where they’re taking the critical care staff from.
Leave them in freaking Africa. Take them to an island somewhere en route, quarantine them for 42 days (what the World Health Organization says is the 90th percentile of incubation time, NOT the 21 days everyone keeps quoting).
But bring them to America? Are you suicidal? Crazy? Stupid? Evil? Or all the above - an Obama believer?
I went to the VA yesterday to see my dentist.
I checked in at a kiosk in the main lobby. Rode the elevator to the fifth floor.
Then I checked in at the nurses’ station and waited 15 minutes until I was called by the hygienist.
Once in the dentists’ chair, she asked me, “Have you been outside of the country in the past 30 days?”
I laughed at her and said, “Isn’t that something that should have been asked as soon as I came through the door downstairs, a half hour ago?”
That is exactly how this government is handling this Ebola problem.
Protect your family and yourself! Vote the rats out of office.
This can not be repeated enough
“the nurse in maine is pure politics.”
Politics? Reminds me of some of the libertarian nutjobs after 9/11 demanding airports show them the part of the Constitution requiring them to present ID to board an aircraft. I would have told them it’s in the Article that covers airplanes.
A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread
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