• Does Little To Protect Americans' Health, Much for Corporations
• MEHPA Passed in 11 States, BioTerror Bill and MEHPA Make Forced Vaccination Using Unproven Drugs Mandatory
• Courts Uphold Forced Vaccinations

by Michael Davidson -- FTW Staff Writer

[Copyright 2002, From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. May be copied or distributed for non-profit purposes only. May not be posted on any internet web site in its entirety without express written consent. Contact service@copvcia.com.]

July 17, 2002, 16:00 PM PDT (FTW) -- President George W. Bush signed into law June 12 the Public Health Security And Bioterrorism Response Act of 2002. The bill authorizes spending $4.6 billion on producing and stockpiling vaccines, requires more thorough inspection of food entering the country, and provides assistance to help states improve water source security.

The overwhelming bulk of the expenditures authorized by this new bill are going to pharmaceutical companies, construction firms, and purveyors of laboratory, computer, and communications equipment. Only a pittance is going to hiring human beings to conduct work in preventing or handling a bioterrorism attack. This bill is really just another way for George Bush to transfer taxpayer money to businesses, and has little to do with protecting American citizens.

At the signing, Bush said "last fall's anthrax attacks were an incredible tragedy to a lot of people in America, and it sent a warning that we needed and have heeded." It's nice to know that Bush feels the anthrax attacks were needed, but apparently he's not pushing the FBI to arrest the person who committed them.

The new act, which began life as HR 3448, consists of four sections. Title I, "National Preparedness for Bioterrorism and other Public Health Emergencies," authorizes $2.72 billion for national, state and local efforts to prepare for bioterrorism and other public health emergencies. The money is allocated as follows:
- $1.16 billion for emergency medical stockpiles, of which $509 million is for smallpox vaccines;
- $450 million for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), $330 million of which is for facility upgrades and expansion;
- $1 billion for state and local preparedness, including $910 million for already authorized programs to develop and implement emergency programs, as well as to train and equip emergency and health care personnel;
- $25 million for anti-microbial research; and
- $90 million for other ongoing programs.

Title II, "Enhancing Controls on Dangerous Biological Agents and Toxins," establishes a mandatory registration system and national database at CDC for all facilities which possess, use or transfer any of 42 specific biological agents and toxins. This provision is enthusiastically endorsed by the American Society for Microbiology, as the previous 1996 law required registration of only those facilities that were transferring the agents.

Title II also requires facilities to submit the names of all persons having access to these biological agents to the attorney general and the Department of Health and Human Services for screening against criminal, immigration, national security and other databases. The screening will be looking for persons defined as "restricted" by section 175b of the USA-Patriot Act enacted in October. Among those defined by 175b are aliens that are not permanent U.S. residents, and foreign nationals from terrorism-sponsoring nations.

Title III, "Protection of Food and Drug Supply," allocates $100 million for increased food inspection, improved information management systems, development of rapid detection inspection methods and threat assessment techniques for food safety. There are also a myriad of administrative procedures mandated regarding record keeping, notification to various government entities, as well as registration by manufacturers, importers and transporters.

Title IV, "Drinking Water Security and Safety," authorizes $120 million to help communities with water systems serving over 3,300 people conduct vulnerability assessments and prepare emergency response plans. Title IV also authorizes $15 million to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review methods to prevent, detect and respond to the intentional introduction of chemical, biological, or radiological contaminants into community water systems and review means to prevent supply disruption.

Titles III and IV allocate roughly a quarter billion dollars to solve problems that have not occurred, i.e. tampering with food and water supplies. The nation has suffered through E.coli outbreaks within the food supply chain, but the Bush administration did nothing about them. Under the guise of "anti-terrorism," the administration now sees the need to protect our food and water. It's all just a way to give money to businesses.

In another massive giveaway, this one to the pharmaceutical industry, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently decided to approve drugs used to treat biological, chemical and nuclear terrorism without their being tested on affected humans. According to a May 31 article in The New York Times, the agency said eliminating the requirement for human testing could spur development of anti-terrorism drugs by eliminating the stumbling block of ethical concerns over exposing human volunteers to substances like smallpox or nerve gas.

The new rule will still require any new drug to be tested on humans for safety and side effects. There will be no testing for efficacy in humans of the new drugs. While researchers may be able to make pretty reasonable assumptions from tests on monkeys, there is no certainty that a drug will work identically on the human species.

MEHPA UPDATE

In previous issues, FTW has reported on the Model Emergency Health Preparedness Act (MEHPA), a law drawn up by the federal government which is attempting to get it passed in all 50 states. One of the major provisions of MEHPA is that a person can be forced under penalty of jail to take a vaccine or drug to deal with a bioterrorism attack. According to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), at press time MEHPA-like laws have been enacted in 11 states: New Mexico, Utah, South Dakota, Louisiana, Minnesota, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Combining the new FDA rule (or lack thereof) about human testing of bioterrorism drugs with MEHPA, Americans in at least 11 states can be forced to take a drug completely untested for efficacy on humans, or go to jail.

In March the federal appeals court for the Eighth Circuit ruled that a defendant can be forcibly drugged even though he has not been convicted of a crime and poses no danger to himself or others. The case, United States of America vs. C.T. Sell, involved a St. Louis dentist who has been charged with Medicaid fraud. He has been in jail for over four years, and has never been brought to trial. In a 2-1 decision, the court acknowledged that "the evidence does not support a finding that Sell posed a danger to himself or others" but established government authority to forcibly medicate a person with mind altering drugs on the basis that "charges of fraud" alone are "serious" enough to justify forced medication. The Court further found that there are no limits on the quantities or types of drugs the government can administer.

The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) joined the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in petitioning the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals for a rehearing in the Sell case. In the Motion for Rehearing, AAPS said "The Decision holds merely that by alleging fraud, the State may inject mind-altering drugs into a prisoner against his will, based on government testimony." The ACLU argued, "The Panel's opinion fails to determine if the government's interest is compelling before applying its balancing test, and fails to acknowledge the fundamental liberty status that the Supreme Court has granted non-dangerous people to be free from involuntary medication by the government."

In early-May, the Eighth Circuit Court issued a 5-4 oral decision not to rehear the case. Americans are now in a situation where:
- The FDA is allowing drugs to be marketed as treatments for biological, chemical or radiological attacks without testing them for efficacy in humans;
- Under MEHPA, states will arrest, charge and jail people for refusing to take a specific course of treatment for a biological, chemical or radiological attack; and
- A Court of Appeals has ruled that it is perfectly legal for an individual to be forcibly drugged while in government custody.

In the name of liberty and freedom, the Bush Administration has told pharmaceutical companies they can do what they want, MEHPA tells law enforcement they can arrest who they want, and the courts have ruled that you can be drugged with whatever your jailers want. There are people who believe George Bush has used the events of 9-11 as an excuse to impose a police state on America.

On May 31, the CDC announced four public meetings to provide information on smallpox and smallpox vaccinations. Meetings were held in New York City and San Francisco on June 6, in St. Louis on June 8, and on June 11 in San Antonio. The hearings were to be used by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices smallpox working group to present an updated set of recommendations at a meeting June 19-20 in Atlanta.

Right on schedule, the CDC announced on June 20 that they had rejected smallpox vaccinations for the general public, proposing instead that the shots be given only to special teams of people who would be designated the first to respond in case of a bioterrorism attack. Under the plan "first-responders" would include doctors, nurses, EMTs, epidemiologists, lab workers, and law enforcement personnel. States would be allowed to provide vaccinations to staff at certain hospitals where confirmed smallpox patients would be treated. The CDC estimated that the number of people vaccinated according to the plan would be "in the thousands."

That number somehow became 500,000, according to The New York Times on July 7. The story also reported that "The government is also laying the groundwork to carry out mass vaccinations of the public." This change in policy would indicate that the government's current program is woefully inadequate to handle a large outbreak.

Or it could be something else. If anything contained in the vaccine given to "first-responders" should somehow incapacitate them, absolute total chaos would take over the entire country as people, literally, feared for their lives. That would leave a huge window for the government to come in to declare martial law in order to preserve freedom and liberty.

An Associated Press story on July 8 lends further credence to an agenda other than the public's well-being. The first paragraph states "Federal health officials are quietly making plans for quarantining Americans who might be exposed to a highly contagious smallpox patient, addressing sensitive questions of how to hold people, possibly against their will, in case of a bioterror attack."

The second paragraph is even more chilling. "The planning, still in draft form, addresses complex logistical and policy questions, including where people would be kept while waiting for officials to confirm a smallpox case and, if necessary, administer vaccinations."

Why exactly are people going to be held while waiting for a smallpox case to be confirmed? On what basis are these people being held? And for how long? The plan discussed in the AP story suggests people could be held from two to 17 days. Regardless of who, why, and how long people will be held, people will be forcibly vaccinated.

Last fall, five people died from anthrax. Since then, we have heard that Iraq has biological weapons, including smallpox, but there is no proof. All we have is saber-rattling from the administration. Our government cannot locate the anthrax mailer, despite many knowledgeable bioweapons experts insisting the culprit can only be one of 10 to 12 people from within the U.S. biowarfare community. Our government is now planning to vaccinate at least half a million people to protect them from something that has not occurred, and whose existence cannot be confirmed. They are drawing up quarantine plans to deal with this same unconfirmed threat. And they plan to vaccinate those people quarantined from the unconfirmed threat.

What's going on? The answer may not be very pretty.