‘It’s not science, it’s coercion’: health experts decry RFK Jr order on hantavirus quarantine | Hantavirus

Health law experts say the Trump administration imposed “authoritarian” and “unconstitutional” quarantine measures for at least one person who came into contact with a hantavirus patient.

The reimposed mandatory quarantine without any scientific evidence reveals how the United States may approach future cases of Ebola and other pathogens in the United States and sets a precedent for detaining Americans without any scientific justification.

“To preemptively detain someone without good reason, without any crime, and without posing a significant public risk” is “arbitrary, capricious and unjust,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of health law at Georgetown University law center.

James Hodge, professor and director of the Center for Public Health Law and Policy at Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, said health officials should never “use unconstitutional, ill-advised, unproven techniques to control infectious diseases.”

Hodge said this event could become “really damaging” to public health, especially as the Ebola outbreak is widespread in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and cases may emerge in the United States.

“Wait and watch, because we’ll probably see this later this summer. The CDC has now set a terrible precedent with certain hantavirus cases, and hopefully we’ll see improvements in the future as well,” he said.

Angela Perryman, an American passenger on the cruise ship MV Hondius, came into contact with another passenger who contracted the Andes virus, a type of hantavirus. He attempted to appeal the federal order to quarantine him at a facility in North Dakota, asking him to self-quarantine in Florida instead.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has asked states to provide in-person symptom checks and 24-hour protection for travelers; This is an unusual move; especially for a pathogen like Andean virus, which is typically transmitted between humans only in rare cases.

“This isn’t the kind of thing where you would have to quarantine as strictly as what we’re seeing here,” Hodge said.

Some states accepted this requirement, and the other 10 passengers returned home to quarantine. Florida rejected these conditions.

Michael Bell, deputy director of the division of healthcare quality improvement (DHQP) at the CDC, recently concluded that Perryman could have effectively quarantined at home with daily remote symptom monitoring and access to public health support. Inside Medicine.

However, on June 15, US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr overruled this conclusion and continued the mandatory quarantine. In his decision, which was also shared by Inside Medicine, he did not give any scientific justification for the decision.

Hodge said Kennedy’s decision to overrule the CDC’s medical advice was “unprecedented,” adding that it set a “very bad precedent for how Americans can expect to be treated if they return to the United States with highly contagious or even semi-infectious conditions.”

HHS spokeswoman Courtney Spencer said Kennedy “specifically considered medical advice before deciding to maintain the current order.”

“In the absence of proper inspection of homes by state officials, the administration’s quarantine order is necessary to ensure the well-being of both Ms. Perryman and her community,” he added.

The agency did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about why Kennedy overruled the CDC and whether it set an unconstitutional precedent in responding to other pathogens.

It is intended that authorities use the least restrictive option available to contain health threats to public health. This means that when there are multiple options that are effective in limiting the spread, “you’re going to choose the one that’s less restrictive in terms of civil liberties violations or violations,” Hodge said.

Hodge said the situation was “highly unusual” for the CDC. Generally, state and local authorities determine quarantine and isolation measures; The CDC can offer guidance on doing this. But now, “even if state and local governments are willing to take over managing some of these cases,” Hodge said, “the CDC is reluctant to push them out.”

Both Gostin and Hodge were closely involved in drafting the CDC’s updated quarantine rules in 2017 and opposed allowing the HHS secretary to overturn the agency’s medical review. Gostin said that although the rules allow the secretary to take that step, “it’s unconstitutional.”

“I was assured that this would be very rare and should not happen. This was not supposed to work out this way. Her constitutional rights are being clearly violated,” Gostin added.

Some of their objections stem from a lack of responsibility. “Secretary Kennedy issued the order and is reviewing his own order, which is outrageous,” Gostin said. “You have a political official reviewing his own order, offering no evidence or justification; a person’s freedom should not depend on a political calculation, which is exactly what is happening.”

Hodge said officials must provide scientific justification for quarantine orders: “That’s a constitutional requirement. That’s exactly what Congress expects.”

Hodge said onerous requirements for hantavirus, such as institutional quarantine or banning travelers from, say, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan, would likely lead people to evade the rules or not provide enough information about their activities, making it harder for public health officials to track potential cases or contain outbreaks at the source.

“The threat is not knowing the cases that actually exist, because we’ve created an environment where people won’t self-report it. That will be the biggest threat,” Hodge said.

Hodge said it also pointed to a dangerous “authoritarian” approach from senior health officials – despite those leaders having previously opposed indefinite “lockdowns” due to the Covid outbreak.

“The hypocrisy is almost unreal,” Gostin said. “Secretary Kennedy’s entire raison d’être was based on medical freedom, ‘the patient has the right to choose,’ and yet here they immediately issue mandatory deprivation of liberty.”

Trump administration officials such as Kennedy and National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya have condemned the Biden administration and blue states for their handling of Covid, a new, much more contagious virus. “But their initial response is not public health, not science, but coercion,” Gostin said.