Senate OKs bill to give state more powers of quarantine

Friday, April 4, 2003 | 10:49 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A bill approved by the Senate on Thursday gives broad authority to health officials to quarantine thousands of people in certain situations, such as a terrorist biological attack.

Five Clark County Democrats cast the only votes against Senate Bill 82, saying it chips away at constitutional rights.

The current law gives state and local health officials the power to isolate an individual, but this bill expands it to "a group of persons."

"We may be talking about tens of thousands of persons," Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, said.

The bill would allow the quarantine of people "exposed to or reasonably believed by a health authority to have been exposed to symptoms of being infected with a communicable disease" from those who have no signs of a disease.

Any person believed to have been infected or exposed may be detained for testing, examination, observation and for medical treatment, if the individual agrees to the treatment.

The health authority could apply to a court for an emergency order forcing quarantine. Within 24 hours of an involuntary isolation, the health authority would have to determine the identification of the person's spouse or legal guardian and notify that person by certified mail.

Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, said that giving health authorities such broad power to determine who is quarantined and how long they will be quarantined sets the stage for same type of injustice that was seen in the U.S. internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

He also argued that had this law been in effect several years ago, it could have been used to quarantine every gay man based upon the fear of AIDS. But Rawson said that when Nevada faced an anthrax scare, that pointed out how ill-prepared the system was to deal with biological terrorism. "If the Legislature received an anthrax letter in this building, it would shut us down," Rawson said.

Exposure to smallpox could result in the death of three million people in the United States, and there are many other agents in addition to anthrax and smallpox that could cause deadly epidemics, Rawson said.

Neal said that the Nevada anthrax scare was good example of why the bill would be a bad law. In that case, the governor called the health authorities in the state to determine if a white substance was anthrax. But the state government did not have the ability to deal with it. It was dispatched to the University of Nevada, Reno, but the university lab could not make a determination. It was eventually sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control. Under SB82, health officials would have been able to quarantine everyone who had been in the vicinity of the powder until the CDC finally determined that the powder was harmless, Neal said.

Rawson and his Senate Human Resources and Facilities Committee said they crafted the bill so there is due process for those who are isolated, he said. An individual who is quarantined would have the right to make a "reasonable number of completed telephone calls," to keep a cellular phone and to file a lawsuit to be released.

Neal said supporters of the bill are trying to capitalize on the fears of terrorism.

"If this is passed, it will do us a lot of damage," Neal said.

Joining Neal in the dissent were Clark County Democratic Sens. Terry Care, Maggie Carlton, Mike Schneider and Minority Leader Dina Titus.

Rawson conceded there had been a "firestorm" of opposition to the bill but his committee wrote sections to protect the rights of individuals.

"We've built due process so people cannot be incarcerated without due process," Rawson said.

A person who is forcibly quarantined could apply to the court to be released. If he did not have a lawyer, the district court could appoint an attorney for him. The health authority must present "clear and convincing evidence" that the individual has been exposed or is infected with a communicable disease, Rawson said.