FC: Bush signs executive order on SARS quarantine

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

     THE WHITE HOUSE
                                                        Office of the Press
Secretary
For Immediate Release
April 4, 2003
                                    EXECUTIVE ORDER
                                    - - - - - - -
                                                           REVISED LIST OF
QUARANTINABLE COMMUNICABLE DISEASES
      By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and 
the laws
of the United States of America, including section 361(b) of the Public Health
Service Act (42 U.S.C. 264(b)), it is hereby ordered as follows:
      Section 1.  Based upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Health and
Human Services (the "Secretary"), in consultation with the Surgeon General, and
for the purpose of specifying certain communicable diseases for regulations
providing for the apprehension, detention, or conditional release of 
individuals
to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of suspected communicable
diseases, the following communicable diseases are hereby specified pursuant to
section 361(b) of the Public Health Service Act:
      (a)  Cholera; Diphtheria; infectious Tuberculosis; Plague; Smallpox; 
Yellow
      Fever; and Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers (Lassa, Marburg, Ebola, 
Crimean-Congo,
      South American, and others not yet isolated or named).
      (b)  Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which is a disease
      associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other
      respiratory illness, is transmitted from person to person 
predominantly by
      the aerosolized or droplet route, and, if spread in the population, would
      have severe public health consequences.
      Sec. 2.  The Secretary, in the Secretary's discretion, shall determine
whether a particular condition constitutes a communicable disease of the type
specified in section 1 of this order.
      Sec. 3.  The functions of the President under sections 362 and 364(a) of
the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 265 and 267(a)) are assigned to the
Secretary.
      Sec. 4.  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or
benefit enforceable at law or equity by any party against the United 
States, its
departments, agencies, entities, officers, employees or agents, or any other
person.
      Sec. 5.  Executive Order 12452 of December 22, 1983, is hereby revoked.
                               GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
     April 4, 2003.
                                  # # #




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