Thread: Bird Flu - Feds Plan To Detain Travelers

Bird Flu - Feds Plan To Detain Sick-Looking Travelers
By Maggie Fox
Health and Science Correspondent
4-24-6


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Infectious disease experts and the American Civil Liberties Union raised concerns on Friday about an agreement that would allow U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and customs agents to detain anyone who looked sick with bird flu.

The memorandum of understanding, a copy of which was provided to Reuters, also provides for Customs and Border Protection agents to give personal details of airline passengers to the CDC.

It was signed in October by Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. HHS spokeswoman Christina Pearson denied it was secret or sinister.

"We have had this agreement in place and it's to help CDC when there is a report of communicable diseases on an airplane," Pearson said.

"It helps them quickly and efficiently to be able to locate passengers and to inform them that they may have been exposed to some kind of communicable disease, to reassure them and tell them how to get right channels to treatment."

The memorandum mentions H5N1 avian influenza, which experts fear could cause a worldwide pandemic at any time, and also makes provision for other diseases.

There have been no outbreaks of disease that would be covered by the agreement since it was signed.

"CDC is authorized to isolate and/or quarantine arriving persons reasonably believed to be infected with or exposed to specified quarantinable diseases and to detain carriers and cargo infected with a communicable disease," it reads.

It also provides for Customs or Border Patrol agents to forcibly detain, if necessary, anyone coming in who appears to be sick while the CDC is contacted.

The CDC says this is necessary in case of a pandemic. Viruses such as flu can easily be carried by airline passengers. But Dr. Donald Henderson, an expert on influenza, smallpox and other infectious diseases who has advised the administration of President George W. Bush on such issues, calls it "silly."

ASTONISHED BY THE PROPOSAL

"I was absolutely astonished when I saw that proposed federal regulation," Henderson said in an interview.

"It's so silly," added Henderson, who now works at the Baltimore-based Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Henderson noted that people can be infectious with influenza and other diseases long before they begin to feel sick or show any symptoms.

"You are spending huge amounts of money and have we got any evidence that this is going to do anything? Is it worth all the energy we are going to be putting into it?" he said.

The ACLU believes that protecting the public is not the motivation.

"The tracking of data on airline passengers, which can amount to building lifetime dossiers on Americans, has been a hotly debated issue for many years -- and now we find out that two government agencies may have agreed, behind the public's back, to share data," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project.

ACLU legislative counsel Tim Sparapani said: "Once again, we are seeing that DHS cannot be trusted to exhibit restraint in the handling of personal information.

"They collect information, say they'll use it for one purpose, and then they turn around and use it for another."

The Center for Biosecurity's Penny Hitchcock, a former National Institutes of Health infectious disease specialist, said the CDC risks losing the public's trust.

"The information that will be collected by CDC/HHS is part of this quarantine effort -- sharing information collected for disease prevention could be harmful," she said.

"The harm being that it will create suspicion and encourage people to regard the public health service as 'disease cops.' Why would people want to cooperate under those circumstances?"


© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

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http://www.rense.com/general70/detain.htm

Okay..so they go after the travelers. What about the people sneaking across the Southern Border? What an insane idea once again...only go after those that are following the proper procedures.


btw, what does "Bird Flu" look like?...ROFLMAO!! Some people have too much time on their hands.

My understanding thus far of the simptums are that it doesn't show hardly any signs in the beginning.
That you may think your allergies, sinues are acting up or that you may have a touch of a cold. Then BAM it sinks in and hits hard.........
So this is rediculas, they couldn't even stop that stupid woman from spreading mumps a few weeks back.

Watch the Mexicans will bring it all right over the boarder. There living conditions are no cleaner than some of those asian countries. And less educated public.

My feeling on the bird flu is that the largest majortiy of this is all scare tactics. Have you not noticed since 9-11, they have come up with scare tactic after scare tactic so that they can piece by piece take away our freedoms and destroy our constitution and bill of rights in the interest of "homeland security". They are using all of this to turn America into a police state! Don't you get it?

I dont believe this is a scare tactic. Look at history the Pandemic ended WW1. Today without slow going ocean ships and hard to travel between countries the out break of anykind of deadly bug/virus could wipe out most human life on this planet. Just check out how fast the Mumps spread out of Iowa. Its only current strain not in the US is in England. And that one we were supposed to have a vacine for. Hmmm might want to rethink that one.

How often are the mumps deadly? I've had them and I am still kicking. Noep it is yet antoehr scare tactic and I aint shaking.

I was just trying to show how fast a virus could spread out of control when not caught or without proper vacines. And if you believe that the Bird flu or a Pandemic are just scare tactics why did the World bank just set aside 500 million to be used to fight them. Also Illegals come into our country and dont pass medical exams. Some even work in the food industry with out health checks or cards. Just takes one good sneeze or cough on your food and you can have what they have. Now there a neet thought aint it. Because they are from third world countries and have a stronger imune system they just might live and we the Health clean 1st world nation people would most likely Die.

And if you believe that the Bird flu or a Pandemic are just scare tactics why did the World bank just set aside 500 million to be used to fight them.

probably so Donald Rumsfeld and his stock-holding buddies could make 5-10 million MORE dollars while injecting citizens with a 'vaccine' that doesn't cure a damned thing! God only KNOWS what you might CATCH from it. The cure is worse than the disease.