http://forums.delphiforums.com/medical/messages/?msg=31665.1
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is urging Congress to eliminate the section of the new Homeland Security Bill that would give the feds "virtually unlimited powers to declare an emergency and order smallpox treatment that could include forced immunizations and quarantines."
The 480-page bill, H.R. 5710, which most congressmen have not read, gives the secretary of health and human services these unchecked powers, AAPS warned:
To declare an actual or POTENTIAL bioterrorist or other kind of incident.
To administer "countermeasures" to a category of individuals or everyone.
To keep extending the declaration without congressional consent.
Also, if anyone is harmed, he may not sue or take any other civil remedy.
"This section will give the secretary unlimited power to define a real or potential threat, to take any measures he decides, and to do it for as long as he wants," said Kathryn Serkes of AAPS. "It's Alice-in-Wonderland time again - an emergency is just what he says it is."
She said the section echoed the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act that most state legislatures defeated last year. "Just remove 'governor' from the old bill and insert 'secretary,' and magically you have a federal bill that was firmly rejected by voters across the country."
AAPS has supported President Bush's call for an advance, voluntary immunization to avert forced vaccines after a bioterrorist attack.
