This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on ISI (6)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related letter  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • World Health  • Bacterial Infections  • Travel Medicine  • Tuberculosis/ Other Mycobacterium  • Alert me on articles by topic

An Isolation Order, Public Health Powers, and a Global Crisis

Howard Markel, MD, PhD; Lawrence O. Gostin, JD; David P. Fidler, JD

JAMA. 2007;298:83-86.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Centuries after the formal creation of quarantine, the practice continues to evoke concern when implemented to halt the spread of dangerous microbes. Witness the controversy generated by US citizen Andrew Speaker, whom the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) detained and isolated because he was diagnosed with pulmonary disease caused by extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). Speaker's case made compelling news, but it also raised questions about the emergence of XDR-TB, the adequacy of public health powers in the United States, and the international dimensions of the XDR-TB threat.

The Recent Encounter With XDR-TB

According to media reports,^1-3 congressional testimony,⁴ and official reports,⁵ physicians diagnosed Speaker with pulmonary TB in March 2007. He was prescribed a regimen of standard anti-TB medications. Susceptibility testing determined that Speaker's TB was multidrug resistant, which prompted county public health authorities to advise Speaker orally on May . . . [Full Text of this Article]

The Complexity of Quarantine Law

State Quarantine Authority

Federal Quarantine Authority

Proposed Revisions to the Federal Quarantine Regulations

Travel Restrictions on Persons Leaving the United States

Extrajurisdictional Application of US Public Health Law

Screening for Public Health Threats at US Borders

XDR-TB and the New International Health Regulations

Author Affiliations: Center for the History of Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Dr Markel); O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC (Mr Gostin); and Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington (Mr Fidler).

RELATED LETTER

Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis and Public Health
Timothy Brewer
JAMA. 2007;298(16):1861.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Tuberculosis: Resurgent Disease, Renewed Liability
Berlin
Am. J. Roentgenol. 2008;190:1438-1444.
FULL TEXT  

Improving competencies for public health emergency legal preparedness.
Gebbie et al.
J Law Med Ethics 2008;36:52-56.
 

Currents in Contemporary Ethics: The Tuberculosis Scare in Retrospect
Joly and Nycum
J Law Med Ethics 2007;35:734-738.
 

Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis and Public Health
Brewer
JAMA 2007;298:1861-1861.
FULL TEXT  

Spring
Harris
Arch Gen Psychiatry 2007;64:996-997.
FULL TEXT