Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

Mike made mention of how in Australia they rounded up people with TB for 18 months of treatment. Unfortunately such actions violate the civil liberties of the infected. And it represents one of the slippery slope aspects of socializing medicine that gives it a bad rep in the US.

To my knowledge, no US court has found an instance of the involuntary quarantine of a person suspected of transmitting an easily transmitted, highly lethal disease, un-Constitutional. From a legal perspective, I believe, such people may be committed because they pose a danger to the public, much as may be a violently mentally ill person. Recall that the US Constitution does not unconditionally affirm the right of the People to liberty, etc, only assure that that government cannot abridge such rights without “due process of law”.

A famous case of a US citizen involuntarily quarantined for much of her life was “typhoid” Mary Mallon, who is believed to have caused many illnesses and 3 deaths from typhoid fever (to which she was immune) between 1901 and 1915.

Less dramatic curtailment of privileges are common in the various state and district public school systems, many of which refuse admission to students who have not received routine vaccination. (see, for example, The 1/23/2007 Washington Post article ”No Class For Those Without Vaccines”). Such requirements have recently received much attention, as several states have implemented regulations requiring that 11-year-old girls who attend public school receive HPV vaccine, even though the HPV virus is transmitted only by sexual contact, is typically lethal only to women (as a cause of cervical cancer), and some worry that such vaccination will encourage under-age sex.