New York State Public Health Legal Manual - New York Releases Apocalypse Guide - WTF!

It’s got an unassuming title, but the “New York State Public Health Legal Manual” might just be the scariest book of the year. It’s the state’s official legal guide to cataclysmic disaster, outlining in dry legalese what to do if, for example, there isn’t enough medicine to treat everyone in a biological terror attack, the New York Times reports. It also covers the legal nuances of seizing property, slaughtering infected livestock, forcing evacuations, and warrantless searches. “It is a very grim read,” says one the courts’ chief of operations.

Major disasters like terrorist attacks and mass epidemics raise confounding issues for rescuers, doctors and government officials. They also pose bewildering legal questions, including some that may be painful to consider, like how the courts would decide who gets life-saving medicine if there are more victims than supplies.

But courts, like fire departments and homicide detectives, exist in part for gruesome what-ifs. So this month, an official state legal manual was published in New York to serve as a guide for judges and lawyers who could face grim questions in another terrorist attack, a major radiological or chemical contamination or a widespread epidemic.

Quarantines. The closing of businesses. Mass evacuations. Warrantless searches of homes. The slaughter of infected animals and the seizing of property. When laws can be suspended and whether infectious people can be isolated against their will or subjected to mandatory treatment. It is all there, in dry legalese, in the manual, published by the state court system and the state bar association.

[link to www.nytimes.com]