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Public Health Law Map - Beta 5 - Medical and Public Health Law Site

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Teret SP. The firearm injury reporting system revisited. JAMA. 1996;275:70.<br />

Teret SP, Wintemute GJ, Beilenson PL. The Firearm Fatality Reporting System: a<br />

proposal. JAMA. 1992;267:3073– 3074.<br />

Van Haeringen AR, Dadds M, Armstrong KL. The child abuse lottery–will the doctor<br />

suspect <strong>and</strong> report? Physician attitudes towards <strong>and</strong> reporting of suspected child<br />

abuse <strong>and</strong> neglect. Child Abuse Negl. 1998;22:159–169.<br />

Wardinsky TD, Vizcarrondo FE, Cruz BK. The mistaken diagnosis of child abuse: a<br />

three-year USAF <strong>Medical</strong> Center analysis <strong>and</strong> literature review. Mil Med.<br />

1995;160:15–20.<br />

Weber RD. Adult <strong>and</strong> child abuse reporting requirements. Mich Med. 1998;98:8–9.<br />

Weber RD. Reporting requirements for adult <strong>and</strong> child abuse. J Mich Dent Assoc.<br />

1998;80:20, 48.<br />

Woodall M. The fears <strong>and</strong> facts of reporting child abuse. Penn Dent J (Phila).<br />

1995;62:11–16.<br />

Source: Portions of this section adapted from E.P. Richards, The Jurisprudence of Prevention: Society’s Right of<br />

Self- defense against Dangerous Individuals, Hast Const L Q, Vol. 16, p. 329 © 1989 E.P. Richards.<br />

XVI. Environmental <strong>Health</strong><br />

Food sanitation, drinking-water treatment, <strong>and</strong> wastewater disposal have been mainstays<br />

of public health since the earliest times. As health departments were given the added<br />

responsibility of guarding against toxins in the broader environment, these regulatory<br />

functions were grouped into environmental health. Most public health orders are directed<br />

at environmental health problems. Because they affect property, not persons, they do not<br />

pose the difficult issues of personal freedom that arise with the rarer communicable<br />

disease control orders.<br />

Environmental health regulations pose two central legal questions: whether the<br />

government owes compensation to the owners of regulated property, <strong>and</strong> under what<br />

circumstances health officers can enter private premises to look for public health law<br />

violations. Both questions arise from the U.S. Constitution, which requires that property<br />

owners be paid a fair price for property taken for public purposes <strong>and</strong> prohibits<br />

unreasonable searches <strong>and</strong> seizures. The difficult problem is deciding if the government<br />

has searched the property unreasonably or has taken the value of the property for which<br />

the owner must be compensated.<br />

A. Federal Environmental <strong>Law</strong><br />

Since the 1960s, the federal government has passed many laws governing<br />

environmental pollution. These laws are passed under the authority of the Interstate<br />

Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which allows Congress to regulate<br />

anything that affects interstate commerce. In general, Congress has not preempted state<br />

497

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