Legislation for Tyranny?
By Kathryn A. Serkes
Supporters of the nanny-state figured out a few years ago that they could guilt politicians into doing just about anything if was done "for the children." But in our post 9/11 world, "for the kids" has been replaced with "to fight terrorism" as the rallying cry for the social engineers' blatant government-power grabs. And they expect you and legislators to roll over and play dead while they hand us a little piece of tyranny.
Across the country, states, including Washington, have been quietly
considering the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA), a bill
touted as an emergency plan for bioterrorism or the threat of
a crisis. Sounds good, but read the fine print.
Most of the bills would give governors unprecedented powers-including
the authority to force mass vaccinations, to ration medical care
and to confiscate and operate medical facilities during a health
emergency.
Not alarmed yet? In this scheme, the governor has sole and absolute
authority to declare a public health emergency, or the possibility
of an emergency-which is whatever he says it is. The declaration
could continue for 60 days, or until the (unelected) State Health
Officer terminates it if the governor agrees to the extension.
Your elected legislators have no power to interfere or to suspend
the declaration.
Dangled as the proverbial carrot is a share of a wad of federal
money for states that enact the provisions, a compelling temptation
to legislators facing cash-starved budgets this year. The bill
introduced in Olympia was one of the most frank about the money
grab-it crunches down to the penny the amount of money the bill
is worth.
The Model Act is a product of the government's Centers for Disease
Control, but was ordered last summer, long before 9/11. A draft
has been kicking around policy circles since 1993 when its author,
attorney Lawrence O. Gostin, peddled the ideas as a member of
Hillary Clinton's Health Care Task Force working group for socialized
medicine.
The language of the Model Act speaks as a testament to those who
want to give the government control of all medical care in the
U.S. Health officials would be allowed to order us all to submit
to medical testing and specimen collection. If they don't like
what they find, they can order mandatory quarantine and medical
treatment, including vaccinations. If you or your doctor don't
go along with the program, you face prosecution.
But the powers don't end when the emergency does. The Act requires
ongoing surveillance, and reporting of your activities, diagnoses
and symptoms without your knowledge or consent. The CDC has long
wanted to implement their National Health Surveillance System
for ongoing government tracking.
The only contagious disease that is a credible biological warfare
threat is smallpox. But there are many scientifically valid arguments
against mass smallpox vaccines, such as serious side effects (including
death). Plus, the strain used in an attack could be vaccine-resistant,
subjecting us to all of the dangers of vaccination while reaping
no benefit at all.
So how far do these bills go? The government or public health
director can trigger these powers in face of an "imminent
threat of an illness or health condition that poses a substantial
risk." 'The threat need not be caused by bioterrorism, but
by the appearance of a "potentially fatal infectious agent
caused by a living organism."
That leaves a lot of wiggle room for definitions. In fact, the
flu would qualify. Would the handful of recent whooping cough
cases in Seattle and Tacoma qualify an unvaccinated child as a
"danger to public health" prompting mandatory immunization?
The Act could be used to invalidate all vaccine exemptions, including
medical and religious ones.
The case could easily be made that this is another very big stick
that will be used by the mandatory vaccine crowd. Immunization
registries already are being used to spy on families and supply
social workers with ammunition to threaten parents with legal
action if they don't meet school vaccine requirements. There's
a big difference in how Washington and parents define a need for
vaccine, witnessed by the woman from DSHS who admitted that the
measles vaccine was a good thing because it cut down on parent's
time lost from work to take care of a sick child.
We also know that Washington is definitionally-challenged when
it comes to figuring out what constitutes an emergency. Dr. Robert
Cihak, an Aberdeen physician, reminded me that a few years ago
the governor, aided and abetted by the legislature, declared the
financing of a sports stadium to be an "emergency."
In this case, the bill's term "threat" is even squishier
than "emergency."
The good news is that the Washington bill died in committee, albeit
for all the wrong reasons. State public health officials figured
out that they could meet guidelines for the federal funding without
passing a new bill, not because of concerns for the citizens of
the state. So the politicians went home happy because they got
their asking price for your rights after all.
However, as other states continue down this path, the threat remains
if we are willing to give any branch government more power to
intrude in our lives. Unless you never stray from your walled
castle in the Puget Sound area, you can be at risk. Changing planes
in Minneapolis could result in a smallpox vaccination.
A few good legislators have take a difficult public stand against
these bills, but they need some back up from the public to derail
them. You can sign a letter to President Bush voicing your opposition
on the website for the Association of American Physicians and
Surgeons at www.aapsonline.org, or contact HHS at (877) 696-6773
or http://www.hhs.gov. These
emails, and especially phone calls, do make a difference-last
year we froze up the email server at HHS with comments on the
medical privacy regulations.
Physicians first ethic is to do no harm. Tell politicians you
expect no less from them.
Kathryn Serkes, President of Square One Media Network, Seattle,
is public affairs consultant for the Association of American Physicians
and Surgeons and coauthor of "The Patients' Handbook."
Contact her at kaserkes@
worldnet.att.net. For more information and links on the Emergency
Health Powers Acts, visit the AAPS website at http://www.aapsonline.org.