Model State Emergency Health Powers Act

The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA) is a proposal by the Center for Law and the Public's Health, a joint venture of Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University, to aid America's state legislatures in revising their public health laws to, as proponents put it, more effectively control epidemics and respond to bioterrorism.

The proposal has been criticized for what has been called a "sweeping reach" that could be abused by governments.

The initial proposal was drafted at the behest of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by Lawrence O. Gostin, an attorney at the Washington, D.C., center, during the anthrax letter scare in fall 2001. It took him "three to four weeks' to do so, he said.

The draft, dated October 23, 2001, was produced by Gostin without consultation from any of the various groups he listed on the title page as being "in collaboration with", namely, the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Association of Attorneys General, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, and the National Association of City and County Health Officials. The claim of collaboration was an error, and a later version, dated December 21, 2001, made the revised statement on its title page that the law was a "draft for discussion … to assist" those organizations. http://www.publichealthlaw.net/MSEHPA/MSEHPA2.pdf

The model act subsequently came under the aegis of the Turning Point National Collaborative on Public Health Statute Modernization to revise state health laws. On September 16, 2003, a third draft of the law was issued. On June 15, 2004. it won the 2004 Distinguished Achievement in Public Health Law Award from the Public Health Law Association.

The model act would revise some subjects covered by existing public health laws, such as reporting of contagious diseases, disposal of the dead, and quarantines.

Critics said, however, that it did so in such sweeping language that it "could turn governors into dictators" as the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons claimed, and Phyllis Schlafly called it "an unprecedented assault on the constitutional rights of the American people."

The very definition of a "public health emergency," which triggered the law's provisions, critics said, was so broad that an influenza outbreak could qualify as an "emergency". The LAMBDA Legal Defense and Education Fund feared it could lead to imprisonment of those with AIDS.

But attorneys Jason W. Sapsin, Stephen P. Teret; Scott Burris, Julie Samia Mair, James G. Hodge Jr, Jon S. Vernick and Gostin wrote in an article in the August 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn., that "Provided those powers are bounded by legal safeguards, individuals should be required to yield some of their autonomy, liberty, or property to protect the health and security of the community." http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/288/5/622 This is one of the classic uses of the police power of a sovereign state. George J. Annas, a lawyer at the Boston University School of Public Health and the MSEHPA's leading critic, said: "The Model Act seems to have been drafted for a different age; it is more appropriate for the United States of the 19th century than for the United States of the 21st century." Annas said the law was unconstitutional.

As of April 15, 2006, 32 states have introduced 92 legislative bills or resolutions that are based upon or feature provisions related to the articles or sections of the act. Of these bills, 37 had passed. http://www.publichealthlaw.net/Resources/ResourcesPDFs/MSPHA%20LegisTrack.pdf