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In These Times (Institute for Public Affairs): New quarantine law treats Americans "like the enemy"

In the wake of the bioterrorism scare, the Bush administration is pushing state legislatures to adopt a draconian new quarantine law. The model law, drafted by the Centers for Disease Control, permits forced vaccinations and quarantines of people exposed to infectious disease and the drafting of doctors and orders police to restrain citizens by force from leaving contaminated areas, reports the January 7 issue of In These Times, published by the Institute for Public Affairs. The proposed law "treats American citizens as if they are the enemy," says George Annas, an SPH professor of health law, who leads 10 New England health law scholars in opposing the law. Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift has introduced a version of the Bush-proposed law that includes not only the forced detention of infected persons, but the seizing of hospitals and confiscation of the infected person's property.

National Review: War on terrorism, according to Codevilla, is wasting our time

William F. Buckley, Jr., writes in the December 31 National Review that "Angelo M. Codevilla is one tough hombre, yet his prescriptions are mobilizing, even for the weak-willed." Codevilla, a CAS professor of international relations and a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, writes in the Claremont Review of Books that the war on terrorism, which has three parts -- homeland security, more intelligence, and bringing al-Qaeda to justice -- is wasting our time. "The first is impotent, counterproductive, and silly," he says. "The second is impossible. The third is misconceived and is a diversion from reality." Drawing from Codevilla's writing, Buckley concludes, "As we are proceeding, we are not targeting the procreative citadels of the enemy. It is not so much Osama bin Laden we are after as those who permitted him to be strong and influential and, as a terrorist leader, productive." The principal sponsors of the terrorists are not religious fanatics, Codevilla says, but "Palestine's Yasser Arafat, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and Syria's Assad family. Killing these regimes would be relatively easy, would be a favor to the peoples living under them, and is the only way to stop terrorism among us."

Business Week: Directors of BU's Health Reform Program address drug prices

In a letter to the editor published in the December 31 Business Week. Alan Sager, an SPH professor of health services, and Deborah Socolar, an SPH project manager, directors of SPH's Health Reform Program, respond to the magazine's December 10 article "Drug prices: What's fair?" "It is sad to see artificially high prices restrict the use of the many medications that are needed -- especially with 70 million Americans lacking drug coverage and millions more insured badly. Private cost controls would cut drug use further, and they might even hamper research. The latest data show that per capita drug spending here is the world's highest. As we outlined recently in Senate testimony, a prescription drug peace treaty could rely on public action to lower prices and raise volumes to buy all the additional drugs needed to fill all Americans' prescriptions, at an annual incremental cost of perhaps $9 billion, while protecting drugmakers' profits and while channeling dollars from marketing and copycat research into breakthrough research."

The Boston Globe: Teaching peace

"The way to peace lies in finding a common ethical basis for communication that would constitute a global identity as humans over and above the competing ties of ethnicity, religion, and nation that separate us," writes Ronald Richardson, a CAS associate professor of history and director of the GRS African-American studies program, in an op-ed piece in the December 29 Boston Globe. "Students should study the religious and ethical traditions of the entire world. They should process through courses on universal history, economy, politics, and geography. Public schools could encourage this turn to universalism by creating a global studies curriculum. Universities could launch colleges of global studies. The latter could and should cooperate with public schools in teacher training and curriculum design. While local action should remain primary, the president should take national initiative by creating an Office of Global Awareness to complement the work of the Office of Homeland Defense; for today's security lies in knowledge, while ignorance imperils. Peace and the beloved community can be achieved, but they must be nurtured."

11 January 2002
Boston University
Office of University Relations