N.Y. Agriculture & Markets Law § 72: Control and suppression of disease

§ 72. Control and suppression of disease. 1. The commissioner may

cause investigations to be made as to the best method for the control,

suppression or eradication of infectious or communicable disease

affecting domestic animals or carried by domestic animals and affecting

humans. Whenever any infectious or communicable disease affecting

domestic animals or carried by domestic animals and affecting humans

shall exist or shall have recently existed outside this state, the

commissioner shall take measures to prevent such disease from being

brought into the state. Whenever any such disease shall exist or be

brought into or break out in this state, the commissioner shall take

measures promptly to suppress the same and to prevent such disease from

spreading.

2. He may issue and publish a notice stating that a specified

infectious or communicable disease exists, may exist or has recently

existed in the state, or in any designated county or other geographical

district thereof, and warning all persons to seclude, in the premises

where they maybe at the time, all animals within this state, or within

such county or district, or an adjoining county or district, that are of

a kind susceptible to contract such disease; and ordering all persons to

take such precautions against the spreading of the disease as the nature

thereof may, in his judgment, render necessary or expedient and which he

may specify in such notice. Such notice shall be published in such

manner as the commissioner may designate. The commissioner may cause

such notice to be posted on buildings where animals are harbored which

are believed to be diseased or exposed to disease, or on poles, gates or

fences within an area in which diseased or exposed animals are harbored

or kept. No person shall tear down, mutilate, deface or destroy any such

notice or order issued by the commissioner and posted, as provided

herein, during the pendency of such notice or order. The commissioner

may alter or modify, from time to time, as he may deem expedient, the

terms of any notice or order issued or made pursuant to this article and

may at any time cancel or withdraw the same.

3. The commissioner may adopt and enforce rules and regulations for

the control, suppression or eradication of communicable diseases in

domestic animals or for the purpose of preventing the spread of

infection and contagion among such animals, or from such animals to

humans, and may, in behalf of the state, accept, in whole or in part,

rules and regulations adopted by the secretary of agriculture of the

United States under any act of congress providing for the control,

suppression or eradication of communicable diseases in domestic animals.

The commissioner may cooperate with the authorities of the United States

government within this state in the carrying out of such rules and

regulations and the enforcement of the provisions of any such act so

passed which are not in conflict with the statutes of this state.

Whenever the commissioner finds that an emergency situation exists in

relation to the prevention or control of communicable disease among

domestic animals, or from such animals to humans, the commissioner may

by regulation require that all domestic animals of any designated

species be immunized against any designated disease. Such regulations

may specify the immunizing agent to be used and the method of

immunization. The regulations may prescribe that such immunization shall

be performed by the agents of the department or require that all owners

or harborers of the designated species shall cause such immunization to

be performed by a licensed veterinarian.

4. Whenever a program for the control, suppression or eradication of a

disease of domestic animals has been adopted and instituted by the

commissioner pursuant to this article, the owner or harborer of each

domestic animal of the species involved shall, on or at the premises

where such animal is kept, present and restrain such animal for tests,

examination, immunization, or identification at such times as the

commissioner on not less than forty-eight hours notice shall direct.