Protecting the Public's Health in An Era of Bioterrorism: The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act

During the fall of 2001, public health law scholars at the Center for Law and the Public's Health at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities were asked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a series of national partners to develop the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA). The MSEHPA provides a series of modern powers for states to consider in responding to catastrophic public health emergencies, including bioterrorism events. Since December 2001, provisions based on the MSEHPA have been introduced in nearly 40 states and passed in 20. Underlying the development of the act is a long-standing debate between legal and ethical scholars and law- and policymakers as to the appropriate ways to balance individual and communal rights. The drafting challenge was to create a comprehensive model law that provides adequate powers to protect the public's health while also respecting individual and group rights. The MSEHPA empowers public health agents with broad authority and simultaneously limits the exercise of power in time, duration, and scope to accomplish communal goals of abating serious public health threats. Coercive public health powers, particularly isolation and quarantine, are exercised on a temporary basis, only so long as are reasonably necessary and only among persons who justifiably may pose a risk to others because of their contagious conditions. Individual rights to contest the coercive use of public health powers, even during an emergency, are secured.     

Exercising Property Rights to Pollute: Do Cancer Risks and Politics Affect Plant Emission Reductions?

This paper examines whether firms' decisions about reductions in toxic emissions depend on the magnitude of dangers arising from their pollution and on who bears pollutant risks. Controlling for the quantity of air toxics released in 1988, this article finds that plants whose emissions generated higher numbers of expected cancer cases did reduce their emissions more between 1988 and 1991. The nature of the community bearing the pollution risk also affected firm decisions. The higher the voter turnout in the area, a proxy for residents' likelihood of collective action, the greater the reductions in a plant's release of air carcinogens.     

世界新秩序和美国对华新政策

本文论述美国１９９７年后对华新政策。文章综述９０年代起美国历届政府的对华的检讨,到１９９７年克林顿政府采取对华新政策,主要是稳定亚洲、中国大陆、台湾,以确保美国在亚洲战略地位和经济利益     

Theories as modern myths: Giving up the pursuit of good theory to focus on good theorizing

Mills discusses the notion of myth and links it to a discussion of theory. While he does not consider myth and theory to be synonymous, I attempt to close the gap between these two notions even further. This argument is accomplished by discussing theorists that have theorized about theory and aligning their claims with Mills’ claims about myth. I propose that Mills cannot rely on coherence to substantiate good myth/theory and, instead, suggest the consideration of what constitutes good quality theorizing. Good theorizing involves deep understanding of different theories/myths and comparing them to generate innovation.     

Religion,truth, national identity and social meaning: The example of Northern Ireland

This article argues that national identity is closely bound up with religion, which in turn is closely bound up with ideas of truth. Different religions will form and transmit different ideas of truth, both moral and cognitive, and transmit them and socialise their members in to holding them. From this a socially exclusive group is formed, which becomes one basis for a nation. This nation becomes morally and cognitively exclusive of non-religious members since they will hold different truths and so cannot be trusted, they cannot be ‘loyal and true’. Ireland and Northern Ireland provide a classic example of this, where Catholic and Protestant were the mediums for transmitting Romantic or Enlightenment versions of the truth and so provided a basis for opposed ideas of nation.     

Priority Setting for the Distribution of Localized Hazard Protection

We address the problem of distributing safety-enhancing devices across a region, where each identical device provides for only local protection of the population. The devices protect nonidentical sectors of the population. The sectors of population are exposed to nonidentical intensities of hazard. A method for the screening and prioritizing of needs for the protective devices is described. An approach of risk-benefit-cost analysis under uncertainty is recommended as follows. Measures of hazard intensity and population exposure are identified. Exogenous parameters that influence assessments of risks, benefits, and costs are identified. Uncertainties of the exogenous parameters are propagated by interval analysis. Several tiers of the plausibility of need for protection are identified. The tiers are useful in setting priorities for the distribution of the safety devices. The method is demonstrated in an engineering application to roadway lighting, but has implications for disaster preparedness, anti-terrorism, transportation safety, and other arenas of public safety.