On Feb. 12, 2002 the Second Nevada Draft of the Model Emergency Health Powers Act came before the Nevada Interim Legislative Health Committee. The committee took testimony on this 80-page draft bill modeled on the federal model bill. The committee chaired by Senator Rawson of Las Vegas and composed of Democrats and Republicans was very concerned about many portions of the bill and was particularly open to suggestions for amendments to improve the bill. The next hearing in Nevada will be on March 19^th, in Las Vegas and will be teleconferenced to Carson City.

My assessment is that in Nevada the Interim Health Committee will prepare a bill to be voted on by the entire Legislature, whether in Special Session (if there is a bio-terrorism attack) or in regular session which is a year from now. I think that we will not be able to kill the bill at this time, but that we can significantly amend it, creating a much less offensive bill and a possible prototype for other states.

• The MEHPA completely eliminates the safeguard of separation of powers and checks and balances. The MEHPA makes the governor a dictator, taking upon himself all powers of government including the legislative, executive and judicial powers of government. (James Madison said this was the very definition of tyranny.) The MEHPA allows the State Legislature to take action only 60 days after a health emergency is declared by the governor. This must be by a super majority in the original model or by majority vote in a later federal draft and in the second draft in Nevada. Then the Legislature can only take action "upon finding that the occurrence of an illness or health condition that caused the emergency does not or no longer poses" a threat. This is extremely limiting. This should be amended to allow the Legislature to immediately become involved in some kind of over site of the Governor’s actions—not wait 60 days. If the Legislature is not in session, which is the case in many states that do not have full time legislatures, some interim committee could be involved with the possibility of filing a lawsuit in the courts if the governor goes too far. The bill should also be amended to provide that the Legislature can terminate the Governor’s action for any reason, including that he went to far in his orders possibly violating peoples rights.

• Under MEHPA state and local health officers to become along with the Governors—dictators with no appeals process for their unilateral decisions to force people to have medical treatment and vaccines or be isolated, quarantined or be charged with a misdemeanor and possibly end up in jail. If you can’t defeat this bill, it must be amended to provide for a workable appeals process for people who refuse to get vaccinated or receive some prescribed medical treatment, which recognizes their Constitutional rights (like habeaus corpus, due process, trial by jury, search and seizure). It was suggested in Nevada that the appeals process now available for mental health patients to appeal decisions be used in this MEHPA. This is a good suggestion because in Nevada it would afford more rights than the state draft bill provided. The Second Nevada draft provides for people who are quarantined to appeal to a district court with procedures to do that.

• One of the most important amendments to any bill would be a provision providing for religious and conscience objections to medical treatment and vaccines. This must be very broadly defined. It should not contain any restrictive language regarding a "recognized religion" or it will not be available to people who have beliefs opposed to vaccines or treatment who do not belong to a religion which does. They should only need to say or submit in writing that their religious beliefs prohibit immunization. The second draft in Nevada does not currently meet these important criteria.

• There is no recognition of parent’s rights and responsibilities with regard to their children in the federal Model or Nevada State drafts. This is important when you consider that people possibly might be quarantined separately from their children. Some safeguard to keep families together needs to be added to any bill.

• The second Nevada Draft provides that the government cannot take your property including food, fuel, and clothing if it is for personal use or consumption. What is personal use? It needs to be defined. Also, the second Nevada Draft provides that the government must provide for compensation for any property that is taken by the government. This is a very important provision.

• Alternative health options are completely left out of all drafts. There should be recognition that alternatives to standard medical treatments and vaccines, etc. are available, often highly effective and far less dangerous. In addition, any Health Emergency Planning Commission should have alternative physicians as part of the Commission.

• Collection of personal medical information, DNA, tests; etc. is not protected in any of the drafts. In fact, they all provide that the information will be turned over to the federal government and used for research. In other words your personal medical information is going to end up in a state and federal database. Although, the second Nevada draft provides that you must give written consent before protected health information may be disclosed, it then lists all the people and bureaucrats who can have it without consent. This is a serious breach of our IV Amendment Search and Seizure/privacy rights. The Nevada Draft also requires pharmacies to report increases in prescriptions and over the counter remedies and requires them to report the name, address, date of birth, etc. of the purchaser.

• The second Nevada draft allows the government to quarantine people in their homes or somewhere else and provides for transportation to those other locations. Consider what nightmares might result from forced quarantine outside of your home in some government location.