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2002 SESSION

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HB 664 Health professionals to report injuries associated with terrorism.

Introduced by: M. Kirkland Cox | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY AS PASSED: (all summaries)

Bioterrorism. Requires the Board of Health to mandate reporting of diseases by physicians and laboratory directors that may be caused by exposure to an agent or substance that has the potential for use as a weapon and that the reports will be given directly to Commissioner or his designee using an emergency response system maintained by the Department of Health and operated 24-hours a day. This bill also modifies the present immunity from liability provision relating to required reports or disclosures of disease to provide that physicians and laboratory directors will be held to a reasonable professional standard for recognizing agents or suspecting the presence of any conditions and will be immune from liability when making reports in good faith without gross negligence and within the usual scope of his practice. The Board of Health's responsibility to conduct disease surveillance and investigation (such as contact tracing) is modified to require the Commissioner or his designee to immediately report any outbreak or occurrence of a disease identified as being caused by exposure to an agent or substance that has the potential for use as a weapon to the Department of State Police for investigation. The State Police will report these incidents to the local police chief or sheriff (with law enforcement authority) or both in the jurisdiction in which the patient resides and where he received treatment. The State Police may also transmit the report to federal and military law-enforcement authorities. The State Police and local law enforcement will immediately determine and implement the appropriate law-enforcement responses to the reports, according to their jurisdiction. These reports will be held confidential and not subject to the Freedom of Information Act; however, the reports will be maintained in the central repository already established by the Department of State Police. Further, the Department of State Police, and any local law enforcement official, may release all or part of any report made or other information obtained pursuant to this section (i) where the release of such report or information may assist in the prevention of imminent harm to public health or safety, or (ii) where the release of such report or information, with patient identifying information removed, may be useful for education of the public on health, safety or homeland defense issues. The Board of Health is also specifically authorized to develop procedures to respond to any bioterrorism.


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