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PRESS RELEASE
Tetrahedron, LLC
Health Science Communications for People Around the
World
NEWS RELEASE
Release: No. DITA-96; Date Mailed: Sept. 6, 2004
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jackie Lindenbach—208/265-2575; 800/336-9266
Hawaii Health Officials and Private Schools Sued
For TB Skin Testing by Public Interest Group
Hilo, HI —A circuit court case has been filed
for $36 million in damages against the Hawaii State Department of
Health, Tuberculosis Control Program, and two private schools, by
a non-profit spiritual health ministry—The Manifestation of
Divine Will—for TB-skin testing of children at low risk contrary
to official standards and published guidelines. The group, represented
pro se by internationally known public health authority, Dr. Leonard
G. Horowitz, claims violations of several state statutes including
those covering medical malpractice and required informed consent,
besides restraints on civil rights and religious freedoms.
The landmark case pins the state’s practice
of “TB clearance” of all school children in public and
private schools against the generally recognized need for informed
consent, religious freedoms, civil rights, and more. Dr. Horowitz,
the author of fourteen books including the national bestseller,
Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola—Nature, Accident or Intentional?,
petitioned the court for a trial by jury saying “the politically-charged
facts speak for themselves. They prove that state’s public
health officials have overstepped their authority by administering
a TB skin testing program that violates the state’s informed
consent and religious exemption laws, the official tuberculosis
skin testing recommendations of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), and the scientific foundation upon which the
public’s trust rests.”
To date, a consensus of American public health authorities
have discouraged mass TB skin testing of low risk populations, such
as those living on the Big Island of Hawaii, due to serious health
risks from high percentages of false positives and side effects
from follow-up treatments including chest x-rays (that may increase
the risk of cancer) and long term antibiotic usage.
Officers of The Manifestation of Divine Will, a Washington-based
humanitarian corporation, moved their headquarters to Puna so that
their children could continue an affordable Waldorf School education.
School administrators, however, belatedly informed the children’s
parents that they would be required to accept the TB skin test that
violates their religious convictions and natural health practices.
Several offers of alternative solutions failed to convince Jessie
Wing, Director of the Tuberculosis Control Program, to oblige Dr.
Horowitz’s requests on behalf of the children and ministry.
The complaint seeks the court’s declaratory
judgments against the “medical malpractice” of using
TB skin testing for low risk, non-epidemic, populations that include
all the school children on the Big Island. The judgments should
extent to Oahu with a much higher, although far less than epidemic
TB rate, according to the filing. In addition, the organization
seeks monetary damages for seven separate claims totaling $31 million,
most of which is pledged to fund local charities, alternative care
programs, and health ministry work on the Big Island.
Religious exemptions for vaccinations are honored
by public health and school officials in Hawaii, but so are wavers
for TB testing in most other states. According to health officials
the tuberculosis case rate in Hawaii, though not epidemic, warrants
the testing program even though it is not explicitly covered in
HRS 302A-1154-57. The omission of TB skin testing in the statute
covering “required exemptions” and another that considers
epidemic urgencies during which exemptions are disallowed, according
to Dr. Horowitz, allows public health officials to overstep their
authority and malpractice tuberculosis control.
“We need more honest and effective health education
and disease prevention programs in Hawaii that empower people with
choices and the freedom to make them,” Dr. Horowitz said.
“Officials in charge of this costly, risky, and virtually
fascist tuberculosis control program should be ashamed of themselves.
Rather than educating legislators regarding omissions in state health
laws, TB officials took advantage of lawmakers’ and the public’s
ignorance when they mandated the skin testing of low risk children.
Our suit seeks to have them explain their malpractice to the public,
and put an end to a program that should never have started.”
end-
NOTE TO JOURNALISTS and OTHERS SEEKING
MORE DETAILS: For review copies of Dr. Horowitz’s
books, please call Jackie Lindenbach at 1-800-336-9266. Dr. Horowitz
is currently living in Hawaii, while directing development of the Steam Vent Inn & Health Retreat.
(See: www.steamventinn.com.)
Posted courtesy of Tetrahedron Publishing Group
206 North 4th Avenue, Suite 147
Sandpoint, Idaho 83864
http://www.tetrahedron.org
Toll free order line: 888-508-4787;
Office telephone: 808-965-2002;
E-mail: tetra@tetrahedron.org
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