Teaching Public Health Law Edward P. Richards Director, Program in Law, Science, and Public Health Harvey A. Peltier Professor of Law Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803-1000 richards@lsu.edu http://biotech.law.lsu.edu What is Public Health Law? The Lumpers and the Splitters Traditional Public Health Public Health Law as Practiced in 1950 Communicable Disease Control Sanitation Clean Water Nuisance Public Health as a Theory of Everything The American Public Health Association Defines Public Health as Everything that Affects Personal and Community Wellbeing Wraps Everything into Public Health Personal Health Services Civil Liberties Sustainable Development Why Does It Matter? Traditional Public Health is Police Power Well Understood State Powers Flexible Response to Emergencies Administrative Law Rules Consistent Jurisprudence Back to the Colonial Period Public Health as Everything Tries to Have a Consistent Model for Different Jurisprudential Classes SARS and TB are Different from Smoking Personal Health Services are Very Different from Communicable Disease Control Community Empowerment is not Police Power Why is This Bad? At Least Until 9/11, Individual Liberties Claims Were Used to Undermine Traditional Public Health Authority Constant Argument from Academics that Old Public Health Laws were Unconstitutional Because They Did Not Fit Every Situation in the New Public Health Perverse Effects Used to Argue Against Effective HIV Control Measures, Thus Devastating Urban Poor and Minority Communities Used to Convince Legislatures to Weaken Traditional Disease Control Laws Many of the Problems Allegedly Addressed by the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act were Caused by Same Folks Who Wrote the Model Act! What is Wrong with the MSEHPA? Flexibility Consistency It is much too detailed It ignores the entire matrix of related state laws Integration Crisis management must be an extension of day-to-day practices, not a special set of laws that sit on the shelf Public Health Law is Administrative Law The Model Act, and Most Public Health Law Teaching Ignores this Basic Premise State Administrative Law Public Health Law is State Administrative Law State Adlaw is Different from Federal Adlaw It is Seldom Taught, but is Critical to Understanding Public Health Public Health is the Perfect Way to Teach State Administrative Law