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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHealth Talks With Ebola Nurse Kaci Hickox Fail, Governor to Use 'Full Authority' - ABC
The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants. Albert Camushttp://abcnews.go.com/Health/talks-ebola-nurse-kaci-hickox-fail-governor-full/story?id=26569596
Negotiations with nurse Kaci Hickox, who refuses to be quarantined after treating Ebola patients in West Africa, have "failed" and the governor of Maine will now "exercise the full extent of his authority," according to a statement from the governor's office.
Gov. Paul LePage didn't say whether that meant getting a court order to enforce Hickox's quarantine or forcing her to take an Ebola blood test. Earlier today, LePage indicated to ABC News that he would abandon his demand that Hickox remain under quarantine if she would agree to take a blood test for the lethal virus.
"I was ready and willing -- and remain ready and willing -- to reasonably address the needs of healthcare workers meeting guidelines to assure the public health is protected," LePage said.
The governor made his comment after Hickox defiantly challenged demands that she remain quarantined by leaving her home in Fort Kent this morning for a bike ride with her boyfriend. She was trailed by a police car as she rode.
louis-t
(23,297 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Calista241
(5,586 posts)That's all the science he needs.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)notrightatall
(410 posts)marions ghost
(19,841 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)Only when she develops symptoms, if she even does, is she able to infect others. And even then, in the beginning stages she still isn't much of a risk.
Can't these idiots understand exactly how Ebola is spread? And at what point in the course of the disease? The ignorance, much of it professed here on DU, is stunning.
I just hope all these people who are screaming about the need to quarantine totally non-symptomatic people, likewise quarantine themselves after every single potential exposure to flu this season.
peacefreak
(2,939 posts)it will be a pleasure to vote against him again. And Ft Kent??? Nice little place, but way the hell up there. She's doing no harm to anyone. Next he'll be saying she's threatening to invade Canada.
Oy vey, Maria!
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)I personally think it would be easier to resolve before it gets into court.
The state is going to be forced to defend it's authority to act through public health orders. I can't imagine a state not wanting to protect that ability.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Your fear is not a basis for denial of liberty, and you can not make it no matter how many fingers you cross.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)It's become your mantra, but...never mind...
Yes absolutely it would be great if all decisions took into account the known medical knowledge.
But what you seem to flatly disregard is that -good- public health policy also MUST take into account OTHER non-scientific issues. And THAT is actually the position YOU WANT TO TAKE YOURSELF!
It's possible to get to the bad policy that's in place with very simple statements that are pretty airtight in their veracity with respect to science and medicine.
You cannot get infected with a virus if the virus is absent.
That's pretty much true. Viruses don't spring into existence via spontaneous generation. Putting on a travel ban or mandatory quarantines is based on the notion that such restrictions work as barriers that keep the virus absent from the community. Just like the over simplistic true statement suggests.
Good policy has to go deeper and in doing so it has to balance the burden created by regulations relative to the benefit that is achieved.
The case with Maine's mandatory quarantine is that it is too black and white. It clearly places a burden on Hickox while in it's blind application it doesn't ensure that the burdens placed on Hickox' freedom of movement is offset by a real benefit to the community.
It's bad policy. It really is, and the badness is as much about the burden to things of no scientific interest (Hickox freedom of movement) as it is to the benefit to the community.
Nonetheless, the state of Maine is certainly going to want to defend it's authority to make public health orders. The governor has put them in an awful spot. But I can't imagine a state not arguing it has the authority to make this type of order and that the state has the authority to enforce the order.
Public health orders usually are made in the best interest of the public. This order isn't. Unfortunately, it's undoubtedly legal, even though it's pretty crappy.
The state is going to argue she's made an obvious act to defy the order. And she has.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)or justification.
A health official directed by a politician makes an order, so it must be obeyed without question?
I say no, not without justification. The order being made is not justification. Due process includes the need to state the case for an order of imprisonment or detention, otherwise it is a dictatorship.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)I think you may be purposefully conflating issues, which is also known as creating straw-men.
States have authority to create regulations.
Governance by regulatory agencies at ALL levels, is a common practice because legislatures, county boards and city councils generally acknowledge both a lack of expertise and interest in the detailed day to day attendance to needs that IS much of governance.
Most state make provisions to challenge regulation... it is after all not done by people elected to govern and there must be some means of preventing dictatorships by regulators. Usually challenges are made directly to the agency, if that process doesn't reconcile the disputing parties, there is typically an option to go to court for resolution.
But the truth is elected representatives of the people shrug off the work to "bureaucrats", aka regulatory experts in the fields of interest, who are often treated with disdain even though they carry all the water.
Public Health agencies typically have broad powers to act, aka, issue orders that the targets of the orders are expected to comply with in order to protect people.
When I worked in TB as an epidemiologist I regularly had conversations with public health nurses to ensure that they -witnessed- the taking of mandated medication provided at no cost by the state People were really forced to take pills!
Based on statistical analyses showing significant associations with occurrences of illness and consumption of those products--work done by bureaucrats...me and my colleagues...companies were forced to remove product from sales. Sometimes very large dollar values of inventory were forced to be diverted from human consumption or destroyed.
Those orders were made under provisions for regulatory government. I think it helped reduce infections disease in the community. I don't want to be on buses with people who have drug resistant TB, I don't want E coli contaminated meat to be in my shopping cart. I don't think other people do either. Control of those things happens under regulatory authority granted by elected government, and YES, there -IS- enforcement.
Now, regulations, like laws, can be good or not so good, even terrible. It's not hard to imagine how bad things could be if a political person decides to insert themselves into regulation for political reasons/ideology. Political people who are basically ignorant on details of the regulatory agency sometimes force actions just because they think they need to look like they are doing something about a high profile issue in the media
I suspect the mandatory quarantines for Ebola have a big component of that sort of thing.
Nonetheless, when a state regulatory agency issues an order, states stand behind the enforcement of those orders, regardless of the goodness or badness of the policy or whether the decision making process was perfect or flawed.
Companies hate it when they are told to pull products out of the market, or to shut down a processing plant and clean it, or to throw away tons of peanuts because they've sat in bins in barns and are full of bird shit. They don't like it a bit. Sometimes they go to court, and the states typically try to stand firm behind their decisions.
Restricting a person's freedom isn't trivial. It is a burden, probably a great burden. On top of the issue of being forced against a persons will, it risks their job, probably causes lost wages and benefits, and may require paying for services...someone has to bring them food, etc.
But, public health agencies are often given authority to do such things by state law, because historically there have been occasions when such things were necessary (when I was a kid my father was 'imprisoned' in a TB sanitarium for 4 months, mostly waiting for surgery to remove a lobe of his lung, Rifampin or other medication to make him non-contagious wasn't available at that time).
So. I appreciate that quarantines create conflicts with personal liberty, but I also appreciate that regulatory authority is essential to functions I want, and I think the public depends upon, in public health
I have the feeling that you don't have any such appreciation for the significant role in governance played by regulatory agencies.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)any regulation...the law that authorizes the regulations...Lepage is abusing the regulations because the law refers to imminent epidemics...and there is none.
If the regulation created violates the law, it is void...legal stuff crossing to medical stuff is complicated, that is why Kaci Hickox, intelligent epidemiologist that she is, hired a lawyer, not to sue, but to defend against the abuse of the regulatory authority.
She is not a legal expert, and an expert was required. Leave it to the experts, I am sure you would agree, follow the science, not the pandering teabag governors, I say.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Lepage is acting within his administration/s interpretation of the law.
That's exactly what elected administrators do.
It's how W got John Woo to justify torture. It's why Obama doesn't prosecute clear war crimes.
It's how Obama sees authority to use drone attacks on foreign civilians, and how Obama assents to NSA/HSD interception of domestic telephonic communication for common criminal offenses.
Honestly, if attacking LePage isn't a political issue for Hickox, she could have assented to the blood test, appealed to the agency, or taken the state to court
She had 3 obvious alternatives in addition to her high profile act of civil disobedience.
Why choose the one MOST likely course to increase the amplitude on the confrontation?
mercuryblues
(14,539 posts)abandon his demand that Hickox remain under quarantine if she would agree to take a blood test for the lethal virus.
She has twice voluntarily taken the blood test, negative both times. I am sure she would voluntarily do it again. He is spewing nothing but political bluster based on fear.
Yet he twists it around to mak it seem like the blood tests were his idea
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)It all depends on which part of the statement they choose to read and report on. LePage is backpedaling hard. Suddenly, even with quarantine, there is an approved list of activities outside the home, which just happens to include bike-riding
Bottom line is he's either already failed to get court order, or knows he's not likely to get one any time soon.
https://bangordailynews.com/2014/10/30/news/aroostook/nurse-leaves-home-for-bike-ride-thursday-morning/
LePages office released a statement shortly after the ABC News reports publication, which made no mention of a blood test. The statement outlined how health care workers in Maine should meet U.S. CDC guidelines for individuals deemed at some risk, which includes anyone who has had direct exposure to those infected with Ebola within a 21-day incubation period.
The statement outlines what Maine considers an in-home quarantine requires, but goes on to list approved activities outside the home. The guidelines would permit an individual in the some risk category to take walks, runs or ride their bicycle, as Hickox did, but ban them from public places and from coming within three feet of other people outside a group setting, LePages statement said.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Go Ms. Hickox!!!!
Make the anti-science crazies really own their stupidity!
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)Some people who have treated ebola patients and not served their 21 day isolation time, are allowed to pose with the president, hug him and mingle in society. But others, like Hickox, are treated like criminals.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)The only people I know of are those that became infected, were cured, and weren't released from the hospital until they tested negative for having any more virus.
Then there was that NBC crew that had some kind of contact with a cameraman that became infected that were put into quarantine and DU went nuts when one of them broke it being seen in a car at a restaurant for take out.
A whole bunch of people were put in quarantine for having any kind of contact with Mr. Duncan and no one here batted an eye at that even when none of them ever became infected.
And after all that finger-pointing at high risk nurses that became infected and were vilified for not keeping themselves quarantined even when they weren't ordered into any kind of quarantine. It was claimed that they just "should have known better" seeing as they were care workers. Yep, there was a big taking of sides over that, but BOTH sides agreed that they should have been quarantined either doing it voluntarily when told they didn't have to or that they should have been made to.
Now it's all praise for a high risk nurse thumbing their nose at public health administrators refusing to stay out of the public. Seems to me that DU just likes it when anyone thumbs their nose at "authority" for any reason conveniently forgetting all those people that recently had to do quarantine even when some of them weren't even high risk.