PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2016-09-01 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • CDC Announces Plan to Detain Americans for Forced Vaccinations? (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • On 1 September 2016 the web site Red Flag News published an article reporting that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) proposed a 15 August 2016 rule newly granting the agency the power to apprehend, detain, and vaccinate by force any American citizen. The article's composition suggested that the CDC had simply sought the power — without limitation — to arbitrarily apprehend, detain, and vaccinate Americans for no apparent reason: The article referenced by name a 15 August 2016 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) document published to the Federal Register pertaining to updated rule changes proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). That document was prefaced with an section explaining that changes to quarantine regulations were being proposed due to recent outbreaks of communicable diseases (such as Ebola, MERS, and measles) around the world: In a section explaining the rationale behind the NPRM, the DHHS specifically stated that it included due process provisions to ensure that individual civil liberties would be well-balanced against proposed measures to protect public health: The article held that the CDC proposes granting itself the power to apprehend and detain anyone, anywhere, at any time, without Due Process or any right of appeal, and to hold that person in quarantine for as long as the CDC wants. However, 42 U.S. Code § 264, originally codified in 1944 and updated several times throughout the years, already grants the federal government authority to take necessary measures (including the apprehension of individuals) in order to prevent the spread of communicable diseases: The same rumor focused heavily on forced vaccines supposedly to be imposed upon any American abritrarily plucked off the street as part of a mandatory agreement with such persons. However, the NPRM defined those agreements in the context of a severe outbreak of communicable disease, as a measure upon which conditional release from quarantine or isolation might be predicated. No portion of the NPRM described vaccinating isolated or quarantined individuals without their consent (although it allowed for restricting the movement of such individuals during a public health emergency): It should be noted that in the U.S., forced quarantine or isolation is considered an extreme measure and is typically undertaken by individual states, not by federal agencies such as the CDC. (The latter only provides guidelines that states may use in deciding when quarantines are called for.) In fact, the recent NPRM was prompted (in part) by a nurse who filed a lawsuit against New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and then-Commissioner of Health Mary O’Dowd for detaining her as part of a mandatory quarantine for anyone returning from specified West African countries who had treated patients with Ebola, and who successfully challenged attempts by the state of Maine to quarantine her: (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url