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HCIdivision17 | 9 years ago

I think this is sorta on the nose, but I would rephrase it as "Do we have a right to not be subjected to medical procedures?"

And the answer to that seems to be fairly strongly in the affirmative. I imagine we will be approaching a more nuanced legal view of such things in the near future as we battle to understand where rights really stand. (Much like many of our rights, there are exceptional situations - like the oft quoted yelling "FIRE!" in a movie theater - and perhaps vaccinations should be treated similarly.)

EDIT - I was pointed to some interesting CDC info below, and there is an interesting scenario possible: make measels a quarantinable disease. This would become a choice with teeth. Choose to vaccinate, or risk isolation. Thankfully, the CDC seems like a fairly serious outfit, and I'm not worried about abuse of power in this way, but it does rephrase the topic a bit.

discuss

order

lsiebert|9 years ago

Quarantine laws exist for a reason.

HCIdivision17|9 years ago

I had never looked it up, and it seems the CDC (unsurprisingly) is involved in applying these laws.

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantin...

From that site, it seems that isolation and quarantine is largely done at borders between states and country. It's also very serious, and it's not something the CDC takes lightly: the last major enforcement of the rule was in 1918 for the Spanish Flu (though it cites there were other minor applications - the ebola scare last year may be one small instance of that).

In context of this, I would imagine that measles would need to be added to the list of diseases quarantine is enforced (I haven't spotted this list yet).

EDIT: found the important list, and it mentions specifically measels are NOT on the list:

  The list of quarantinable diseases is contained in an 
  Executive Order of the President and includes cholera, 
  diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, 
  yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers (such as Marburg, 
  Ebola, and Congo-Crimean), and severe acute respiratory 
  syndromes.
  
  Many other illnesses of public health signficance, such as 
  measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox, are not 
  contained in the list of quarantinable illnesses, but 
  continue to pose a health risk to the public. Quarantine 
  Station personnel respond to reports of ill travelers 
  aboard airplanes, ships, and at land border crossings to 
  make an assessment of the public health risk and initiate 
  an appropriate response.

One of the executive orders is linked in that list: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2003-04-09/pdf/03-8832.pdf