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To the Editor: In their article promoting the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA) that they drafted, Mr Gostin and colleagues¹ cite only 1 published criticism of it, which I wrote.² This use of a single citation is misleading in 2 important ways: it implies that their act has wider support than it does, and it misstates the range of criticisms about it. As to the first, the authors themselves stated on the first page of the MSEHPA that it was intended simply as a "draft for discussion."³ They further wrote that it does "not represent the official policy, endorsement, or views" of anyone, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or any of the organizations listed in the acknowledgments.

Second, the authors imply that my primary objection is that the act gives governors too much power. In fact, on this issue I stated simply, "State . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Lawrence O. Gostin, JD; Jason W. Sapsin, JD; Stephen P. Teret, JD, MPH; Scott Burris, JD; Julie Samia Mair, JD, MPH; James G. Hodge, Jr, JD, LLM; Jon S. Vernick, JD, MPH
Center for Law and the Public's Health
Georgetown University/Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Washington, DC