In this week’s issue of New England Journal of Medicine, Michelle Mello, Wendy Parmet, and I write about what constitutes — or should constitute — a “public health emergency”. The law provides for emergency declarations, which suspend ordinary legal standards and processes in order to avoid catastrophe, on many levels (international, federal, state, local) and in public health or more general contexts. We focus our discussion at the state level, using Governor Deval Patrick’s declaration of the opioid-addiction crisis as a public health emergency as an opportunity to explore the appropriate parameters of these powers. My co-authors and I don’t debate the public health significance of opioid addiction in the Commonwealth, nor the specific measures ordered pursuant to this declaration. We do question the expanding use of public health emergency powers beyond the traditional arenas of infectious disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and acts of bioterrorism into new territories, such as injuries and chronic disease.
State laws provide governors and their top health officers with considerable latitude in declaring public health emergencies. But the powers available upon such declarations are extraordinary and should be wielded with care. My co-authors and I identify three key criteria that seem to be enshrined in the spirit of public health emergency laws: “the situation is exigent, the anticipated or potential harm is calamitous, and the harm cannot be avoided through ordinary procedures.” In the absence of these criteria, the invocation of such emergencies may raise heightened concerns — for instance, if ensuing orders involve serious infringements on individual and private business rights — and could result in a loss of public trust in health officials and legitimacy in public health laws. We caution against setting such troubling precedent.
Read more in our Perspective, entitled “What Is a Public Health “Emergency”?“.
