In the spring of 2001, officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asked the staff of the Center for Law and the Public's Health (based at Georgetown University and the Johns Hopkins University) to draft a [MSEHPA]. This Model Act would enable states to revise their public health statutes in order to take account of contemporary scientific knowledge, communications technology, and case law on the rights of individuals and the duties of government. Many states had not substantially revised their public codes for a half century or longer. Drafting the Model Act accelerated after September 11th and especially after the first anthrax case was identified on October 4th. The Georgetown/Hopkins lawyers posted a draft on the World Wide Web in late October (and revised it in December). Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson enthusiastically endorsed the draft. Across the political spectrum, however, but especially among liberals and libertarians, attacks began immediately on the need for the act and its major provisions-especially on its recommendations for planning, surveillance, public information, taking property, directing the work of health professionals and immunizing them from liability, and interfering with the privacy and liberty of persons to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Nevertheless, legislation inspired by the Model Act has been introduced in more than 30 states.2 In some states, legislators and governors who supported the main thrust of the act decided that archaic provisions were better than anarchy. They feared that opening the entire public health code to amendment risked the repeal of substantial sections of it. In other states, lawmakers have used the Model Act as a checklist against which to review and revise their public health statute. No state, to our knowledge, has adopted the Model Act posted on the Web. The Model Act has become a contentious document in a process of policymaking that is likely to continue as long as the threat of bioterrorism persists. This new fact of life is recognized in the new Department of Health and Human Services grant program to improve public health infrastructure for better defense against terrorism, which requires states to conduct ongoing review and revision of pertinent laws and regulations. (Colmers and Fox, March 2003)