http://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/10/legal-challenges-cdc-public-health-policy-00031253
Its a tsunami: Legal challenges threatening public health policy
Court battles over Covid-19 safety measures and recent court rulings
will impact the governments ability to keep Americans safe, experts warn.
NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 19: A mask is seen on the ground at John F.
Kennedy Airport on April 19, 2022 in New York City. On Monday, a federal >judge in Florida struck down the mask mandate for airports and other
methods of public transportation as a new COVID variant is on the rise
across parts of the United States. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
In April, a federal judge in Florida struck down the mask mandate for >airports and other methods of public transportation as a new COVID
variant is on the rise across parts of the United States. | Spencer >Platt/Getty Images
By KRISTA MAHR
05/10/2022 04:30 AM EDT
Mounting legal challenges to pandemic public health rules and judges >increasing willingness to overrule medical experts threaten to erode
the influence of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
other government health authorities.
In the last year, four court rulings against the CDC, including one from
the Supreme Court, have forced the agency to stop or change its pandemic >mitigation orders. Most recently, a Florida district judge ordered a
national injunction ending the agencys mask mandate on public transport.
Litigation invites litigation invites litigation, said Wendy Parmet, >faculty co-director at the Center for Health Policy and Law at
Northeastern University. Its a cycle that creates enormous uncertainty >about what CDC could do going forward should the pandemic worsen again,
or should another pandemic or even a more regional outbreak arise.
The high-profile challenges to the CDC sit atop thousands more lawsuits >against state and local health authorities that have been filed during
the pandemic, experts say, seeking to end localized social distancing
and mask orders, vaccine mandates and business closures.
The constant threat of being dragged into court is having a chilling
effect on local health officials that may last well beyond the Covid-19 >crisis, leading health commissioners or board of health members to think >twice about enacting public safety measures.
Its a tsunami, says James Hodge, a law professor at Arizona State >Universitys Sandra Day OConnor College of Law. Anything that limits
you as an American from doing something you dont want to do It all
got a challenge.
The flood of legal challenges is part of a profound antagonism many in
the U.S. have felt toward public health officials since the early days
of the pandemic, when the rapid spread of Covid-19 put government
authority and Americas fierce defense of individual freedoms on a
collision course.
A sign on a door asks people to wear masks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
CDC strategy on masks could haunt the country
BY RACHAEL LEVY
Political meddling in the CDCs Covid-19 response and the agencys own >unforced errors in testing and communication stiffened many Americans >resistance to the governments involvement in their personal health,
even as nearly one million Americans have died. In addition to lawsuits, >bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the nation to
limit public health authorities power, and scores of public health
officials have left their jobs in frustration.
Every stage of the crisis has brought a new challenge to public health >workers.
In Massachusetts, public health officials fended off a stream of
lawsuits in the early days of the pandemic, getting in the way of work
like finding shelters for homeless Covid-positive residents. In Ohio,
the state legislature passed a bill in 2021 to allow lawmakers to
override the governors health orders or emergency declarations. And in >Washington, one of the last states to end its indoor mask order in
March, local public health officials worried about trying to enforce
future regional orders on their own, if cases rose again in their community.
Health authorities need to know that they cant run amok. Judicial
review is an important deterrent against overreach and abuse, says Parmet.
On the other hand, you dont want judicial review to be so threatening,
and so omnipresent that when a health emergency arises, officials are >paralyzed by fear of litigation, and theyre so worried about what the
court will do, when their lawyers are saying, You cant do this and you >cant do that Then you get into a situation where lives will be in
danger.
Future authority
Threats to the CDCs authority came into focus in April when a federal
judge in Florida ruled the agency did not have the authority to order a >national mask mandate on public transportation and issued a nationwide >injunction against the order.
The ruling from the judge, a Trump appointee who the American Bar
Association deemed was not qualified when she was nominated for the
bench, came as national Covid-19 cases were rising, and prompted a
cascade of private transportation companies to lift their own
requirements on facial coverings.
The Department of Justice appealed the ruling in the 11th Circuit Court
of Appeals, in part to protect the CDCs authority to issue similar
orders in the future. On May 3, the mandate ran out anyway, and the CDC >recommended that people continue to mask up on planes, trains and buses.
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Roe v. Wade
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Since then, another federal judge in Florida reached the opposite
conclusion, saying the CDC was within its power to order the mandate. In >Texas, yet another challenge to the defunct requirement is still pending.
The 11th Circuit has weighed in on the CDCs pandemic authorities
before. In July, it upheld a lower Florida court order prohibiting the
agency from imposing Covid-19 restrictions on cruise ships in the state.
The next month, the Supreme Court rejected the CDCs pandemic-related >eviction moratorium, ruling the agency did not have the authority to
impose it.
Other federal agencies that watch over Americans health have also come
into the courts crosshairs. In January, the Supreme Court struck down
an order by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that
mandated employees in businesses with over 100 workers be vaccinated or >tested, though it upheld the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services >vaccine mandate for workers in Medicare and Medicaid participating >facilities. The court is also considering a case that could limit the >Environmental Protection Agencys ability to regulate air pollution,
among other things.
Many of these decisions fit a worrying pattern, public health experts
said, in which judges do not appear to be taking scientific evidence or >expertise on board.
Historically, theres been some level of deference to experts who are
using their legal authority to save lives, said Joshua Sharfstein,
professor of the practice in health policy and management at Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. But that has been eroding.
The courts have increasingly not really cared to assess the implications
of the decisions for health.
At the local level, state and local public health agencies have won most
of the challenges to their authority, says Hodge of ASU, who provides
legal guidance to public health agencies and others through The Network
for Public Health Law, an expert entity that helps organizations
navigate laws and regulations.
But after vaccines were introduced, some courts started to ask
authorities more questions on why mitigation measures are necessary, he
said.
Courts have also intervened over Title 42, the CDC order stopping
migrants from entering the U.S. immigration system in order to prevent
the spread of Covid-19. The policy has drawn the ire of judges and
critics, who have said it is a legitimate public health rule that has
been politicized in both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Since it was enacted under Trump in March 2020, public health experts
say the order is an ineffective way to prevent transmission of the
virus, and immigration advocates say it violates international
humanitarian law by turning away asylum seekers fleeing danger at the
border.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent instructs immigrant families as they prepare
to board transport to a processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico >border.
WHITE HOUSE
Biden to comply with forthcoming order to keep Covid border restrictions
in place
BY EUGENE DANIELS AND LAURA BARRN-LPEZ
Some courts have been sympathetic with those perspectives. On March 4, a
D.C. Circuit Court judge questioned what, if any, public health purpose
the policy serves at this stage in the pandemic and ruled that the CDC
did not have the authority to send families back to danger without
giving them the chance to apply for protection against persecution and >torture.
Others have sided with states seeking to keep the order in place as an >immigration-control measure. Not long after the D.C. Circuit Court
ruling, the CDC said it would end the order for all migrants on May 23.
That effort is being challenged in a Louisiana court by states worried
about the surge in migrants that its end could bring. A federal judge
issued a temporary restraining order preventing the CDC from phasing out
the order before then and could soon seek to stop the administration
from ending it altogether.
Its dangerous to start manipulating the public health laws, says Lee >Gelernt, an ACLU attorney representing the families in the case in D.C. >Circuit Court. At this point, theres no longer even the pretense that
Title 42 is needed for public health; its being discussed openly as a >border-control measure.
Landscape of anger and vehemence
In Washington state, Secretary of Health Umair Shah says this litigious >atmosphere, and particularly a decision like the Florida injunction
against the CDCs travel mask mandate, has ramifications for public
health policy across the nation.
He says its part of a broader landscape of anger and vehemence
against public health officials and public health policies that is
making it harder for them to do their jobs.
I know that those things everything together has had an impact on >people, said Shah. It may not have changed necessarily what theyre
doing, but it may have changed how theyve gone about it, or how public >theyve been, or how careful theyve been, because nobody wants to have
that onslaught launched against them.
In Massachusetts, having to constantly fend off lawsuit threats was a >complete time suck in the early days of the pandemic, recalls Cheryl >Sbarra, executive director and senior staff attorney at the
Massachusetts Association of Health Boards.
Sbarra, who provides legal guidance to health boards across the state,
says two years later, the threats have not stopped. Board meetings are
more contentious. Theres more bashing. People wearing masks during
the latest rise in Covid cases are harassed.
Its not as hot as it was, but theres still a lingering feeling with
some people that we violated their rights, Sbarra said. And I dont
know if thats ever going to go away.
Michael Ejercito wrote:
http://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/10/legal-challenges-cdc-public-health-policy-00031253
‘It’s a tsunami’: Legal challenges threatening public health policy
Court battles over Covid-19 safety measures and recent court rulings
will impact the government’s ability to keep Americans safe, experts warn. >>
NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 19: A mask is seen on the ground at John F.
Kennedy Airport on April 19, 2022 in New York City. On Monday, a federal
judge in Florida struck down the mask mandate for airports and other
methods of public transportation as a new COVID variant is on the rise
across parts of the United States. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
In April, a federal judge in Florida struck down the mask mandate for
airports and other methods of public transportation as a new COVID
variant is on the rise across parts of the United States. | Spencer
Platt/Getty Images
By KRISTA MAHR
05/10/2022 04:30 AM EDT
Mounting legal challenges to pandemic public health rules — and judges’ >> increasing willingness to overrule medical experts — threaten to erode
the influence of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
other government health authorities.
In the last year, four court rulings against the CDC, including one from
the Supreme Court, have forced the agency to stop or change its pandemic
mitigation orders. Most recently, a Florida district judge ordered a
national injunction ending the agency’s mask mandate on public transport. >>
“Litigation invites litigation invites litigation,” said Wendy Parmet, >> faculty co-director at the Center for Health Policy and Law at
Northeastern University. It’s a cycle that “creates enormous uncertainty >> about what CDC could do going forward should the pandemic worsen again,
or should another pandemic or even a more regional outbreak arise.”
The high-profile challenges to the CDC sit atop thousands more lawsuits
against state and local health authorities that have been filed during
the pandemic, experts say, seeking to end localized social distancing
and mask orders, vaccine mandates and business closures.
The constant threat of being dragged into court is having a chilling
effect on local health officials that may last well beyond the Covid-19
crisis, leading health commissioners or board of health members to think
twice about enacting public safety measures.
“It’s a tsunami,” says James Hodge, a law professor at Arizona State >> University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. “Anything that limits >> you as an American from doing something you don’t want to do … It all
got a challenge.”
The flood of legal challenges is part of a profound antagonism many in
the U.S. have felt toward public health officials since the early days
of the pandemic, when the rapid spread of Covid-19 put government
authority and America’s fierce defense of individual freedoms on a
collision course.
A sign on a door asks people to wear masks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
CDC strategy on masks could haunt the country
BY RACHAEL LEVY
Political meddling in the CDC’s Covid-19 response and the agency’s own >> unforced errors in testing and communication stiffened many Americans’
resistance to the government’s involvement in their personal health,
even as nearly one million Americans have died. In addition to lawsuits,
bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the nation to
limit public health authorities’ power, and scores of public health
officials have left their jobs in frustration.
Every stage of the crisis has brought a new challenge to public health
workers.
In Massachusetts, public health officials fended off a stream of
lawsuits in the early days of the pandemic, getting in the way of work
like finding shelters for homeless Covid-positive residents. In Ohio,
the state legislature passed a bill in 2021 to allow lawmakers to
override the governor’s health orders or emergency declarations. And in
Washington, one of the last states to end its indoor mask order in
March, local public health officials worried about trying to enforce
future regional orders on their own, if cases rose again in their community. >>
“Health authorities need to know that they can’t run amok. Judicial
review is an important deterrent against overreach and abuse,” says Parmet.
“On the other hand, you don’t want judicial review to be so threatening, >> and so omnipresent… that when a health emergency arises, officials are
paralyzed by fear of litigation, and they’re so worried about what the
court will do, when their lawyers are saying, ‘You can’t do this and you >> can’t do that’… Then you get into a situation where lives will be in >> danger.”
Future authority
Threats to the CDC’s authority came into focus in April when a federal
judge in Florida ruled the agency did not have the authority to order a
national mask mandate on public transportation and issued a nationwide
injunction against the order.
The ruling from the judge, a Trump appointee who the American Bar
Association deemed was “not qualified” when she was nominated for the
bench, came as national Covid-19 cases were rising, and prompted a
cascade of private transportation companies to lift their own
requirements on facial coverings.
The Department of Justice appealed the ruling in the 11th Circuit Court
of Appeals, in part to protect the CDC’s authority to issue similar
orders in the future. On May 3, the mandate ran out anyway, and the CDC
recommended that people continue to mask up on planes, trains and buses.
MOST READ
Screenshot 2022-05-03 123921.jpg
Read Justice Alito’s initial draft abortion opinion which would overturn >> Roe v. Wade
The Real Origins of the Religious Right
Exclusive: Madison Cawthorn photos reveal him wearing women’s lingerie
in public setting
8 Democrats defect on $15 minimum wage hike
Why Did Obama Free This Terrorist?
Since then, another federal judge in Florida reached the opposite
conclusion, saying the CDC was within its power to order the mandate. In
Texas, yet another challenge to the defunct requirement is still pending.
The 11th Circuit has weighed in on the CDC’s pandemic authorities
before. In July, it upheld a lower Florida court order prohibiting the
agency from imposing Covid-19 restrictions on cruise ships in the state.
The next month, the Supreme Court rejected the CDC’s pandemic-related
eviction moratorium, ruling the agency did not have the authority to
impose it.
Other federal agencies that watch over Americans’ health have also come
into the courts’ crosshairs. In January, the Supreme Court struck down
an order by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that
mandated employees in businesses with over 100 workers be vaccinated or
tested, though it upheld the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’
vaccine mandate for workers in Medicare and Medicaid participating
facilities. The court is also considering a case that could limit the
Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate air pollution,
among other things.
Many of these decisions fit a worrying pattern, public health experts
said, in which judges do not appear to be taking scientific evidence or
expertise on board.
“Historically, there’s been some level of deference to experts who are >> using their legal authority to save lives,” said Joshua Sharfstein,
professor of the practice in health policy and management at Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But that has been eroding.
The courts have increasingly not really cared to assess the implications
of the decisions for health.”
At the local level, state and local public health agencies have won most
of the challenges to their authority, says Hodge of ASU, who provides
legal guidance to public health agencies and others through The Network
for Public Health Law, an expert entity that helps organizations
navigate laws and regulations.
But after vaccines were introduced, some courts started to ask
authorities more questions on why mitigation measures are necessary, he
said.
Courts have also intervened over Title 42, the CDC order stopping
migrants from entering the U.S. immigration system in order to prevent
the spread of Covid-19. The policy has drawn the ire of judges and
critics, who have said it is a legitimate public health rule that has
been politicized in both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Since it was enacted under Trump in March 2020, public health experts
say the order is an ineffective way to prevent transmission of the
virus, and immigration advocates say it violates international
humanitarian law by turning away asylum seekers fleeing danger at the
border.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent instructs immigrant families as they prepare
to board transport to a processing center after crossing the U.S.-Mexico
border.
WHITE HOUSE
Biden to comply with forthcoming order to keep Covid border restrictions
in place
BY EUGENE DANIELS AND LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ
Some courts have been sympathetic with those perspectives. On March 4, a
D.C. Circuit Court judge questioned what, if any, public health purpose
the policy serves at this stage in the pandemic and ruled that the CDC
did not have the authority to send families back to danger without
giving them the chance to apply for protection against persecution and
torture.
Others have sided with states seeking to keep the order in place as an
immigration-control measure. Not long after the D.C. Circuit Court
ruling, the CDC said it would end the order for all migrants on May 23.
That effort is being challenged in a Louisiana court by states worried
about the surge in migrants that its end could bring. A federal judge
issued a temporary restraining order preventing the CDC from phasing out
the order before then and could soon seek to stop the administration
from ending it altogether.
“It’s dangerous to start manipulating the public health laws,” says Lee
Gelernt, an ACLU attorney representing the families in the case in D.C.
Circuit Court. “At this point, there’s no longer even the pretense that >> Title 42 is needed for public health; it’s being discussed openly as a
border-control measure.”
Landscape of ‘anger and vehemence’
In Washington state, Secretary of Health Umair Shah says this litigious
atmosphere, and particularly a decision like the Florida injunction
against the CDC’s travel mask mandate, “has ramifications for public
health policy across the nation.”
He says it’s part of a broader landscape of “anger and vehemence”
against public health officials and public health policies that is
making it harder for them to do their jobs.
“I know that those things — everything together — has had an impact on >> people,” said Shah. “It may not have changed necessarily what they’re >> doing, but it may have changed how they’ve gone about it, or how public
they’ve been, or how careful they’ve been, because nobody wants to have >> that onslaught launched against them.”
In Massachusetts, having to constantly fend off lawsuit threats was a
“complete time suck” in the early days of the pandemic, recalls Cheryl >> Sbarra, executive director and senior staff attorney at the
Massachusetts Association of Health Boards.
Sbarra, who provides legal guidance to health boards across the state,
says two years later, the threats have not stopped. Board meetings are
more contentious. There’s more “bashing.” People wearing masks during >> the latest rise in Covid cases are harassed.
“It’s not as hot as it was, but there’s still a lingering feeling with >> some people that we violated their rights,” Sbarra said. “And I don’t >> know if that’s ever going to go away.”
The only *healthy* way to stop the pandemic, thereby saving lives, in
the U.S. & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like
http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
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