2007 Minnesota Statutes

144.12 REGULATION, ENFORCEMENT, LICENSES, FEES.
    Subdivision 1. Rules. The commissioner may adopt reasonable rules pursuant to chapter
14 for the preservation of the public health. The rules shall not conflict with the charter or
ordinance of a city of the first class upon the same subject. The commissioner may control, by
rule, by requiring the taking out of licenses or permits, or by other appropriate means, any of
the following matters:
(1) The manufacture into articles of commerce, other than food, of diseased, tainted, or
decayed animal or vegetable matter;
(2) The business of scavengering and the disposal of sewage;
(3) The location of mortuaries and cemeteries and the removal and burial of the dead;
(4) The management of boarding places for infants and the treatment of infants in them;
(5) The pollution of streams and other waters and the distribution of water by persons for
drinking or domestic use;
(6) The construction and equipment, in respect to sanitary conditions, of schools, hospitals,
almshouses, prisons, and other public institutions, and of lodging houses and other public sleeping
places kept for gain;
(7) The treatment, in hospitals and elsewhere, of persons suffering from communicable
diseases, including all manner of venereal disease and infection, the disinfection and quarantine of
persons and places in case of those diseases, and the reporting of sicknesses and deaths from them;
Neither the commissioner nor any board of health as defined in section 145A.02, subdivision
2 , nor director of public health may adopt any rule or regulation for the treatment in any penal
or correctional institution of any person suffering from any communicable disease or venereal
disease or infection, which requires the involuntary detention of any person after the expiration
of the period of sentence to the penal or correctional institution, or after the expiration of the
period to which the sentence may be reduced by good time allowance or by the lawful order of
any judge or the Department of Corrections;
(8) The prevention of infant blindness and infection of the eyes of the newly born by the
designation, from time to time, of one or more prophylactics to be used in those cases and in the
manner that the commissioner directs, unless specifically objected to by a parent of the infant;
(9) The furnishing of vaccine matter; the assembling, during epidemics of smallpox, with
other persons not vaccinated, but no rule of the board or of any public board or officer shall at any
time compel the vaccination of a child, or exclude, except during epidemics of smallpox and when
approved by the local board of education, a child from the public schools for the reason that the
child has not been vaccinated; any person required to be vaccinated may select for that purpose
any licensed physician and no rule shall require the vaccination of any child whose physician
certifies that by reason of the child's physical condition vaccination would be dangerous;
(10) The accumulation of filthy and unwholesome matter to the injury of the public health
and its removal;
(11) The collection, recording, and reporting of vital statistics by public officers and the
furnishing of information to them by physicians, undertakers, and others of births, deaths, causes
of death, and other pertinent facts;
(12) The construction, equipment, and maintenance, in respect to sanitary conditions, of
lumber camps, migratory or migrant labor camps, and other industrial camps;
(13) The general sanitation of tourist camps, summer hotels, and resorts in respect to
water supplies, disposal of sewage, garbage, and other wastes and the prevention and control of
communicable diseases; and, to that end, may prescribe the respective duties of agents of a
board of health as authorized under section 145A.04; and all boards of health shall make such
investigations and reports and obey such directions as the commissioner may require or give and,
under the supervision of the commissioner, enforce the rules;
(14) Atmospheric pollution which may be injurious or detrimental to public health;
(15) Sources of radiation, and the handling, storage, transportation, use and disposal of
radioactive isotopes and fissionable materials; and
(16) The establishment, operation and maintenance of all clinical laboratories not owned,
or functioning as a component of a licensed hospital. These laboratories shall not include
laboratories owned or operated by five or less licensed practitioners of the healing arts, unless
otherwise provided by federal law or regulation, and in which these practitioners perform tests or
procedures solely in connection with the treatment of their patients. Rules promulgated under
the authority of this clause, which shall not take effect until federal legislation relating to the
regulation and improvement of clinical laboratories has been enacted, may relate at least to
minimum requirements for external and internal quality control, equipment, facility environment,
personnel, administration and records. These rules may include the establishment of a fee
schedule for clinical laboratory inspections. The provisions of this clause shall expire 30 days
after the conclusion of any fiscal year in which the federal government pays for less than 45
percent of the cost of regulating clinical laboratories.
    Subd. 2. Mass gatherings. The commissioner may regulate the general sanitation of
mass gatherings by promulgation of rules in respect to, but not limited to, the following areas:
water supply, disposal of sewage, garbage and other wastes, the prevention and control of
communicable diseases, the furnishing of suitable and adequate sanitary accommodations, and
all other reasonable and necessary precautions to protect and insure the health, comfort and
safety of those in attendance. No permit, license, or other prior approval shall be required of the
commissioner for a mass gathering. A "mass gathering" shall mean an actual or reasonably
anticipated assembly of more than 1,500 persons which will continue, or may reasonably be
expected to continue, for a period of more than ten consecutive hours and which is held in an
open space or temporary structure especially constructed, erected or assembled for the gathering.
For purposes of this subdivision, "mass gatherings" shall not include public gatherings sponsored
by a political subdivision or a nonprofit organization.
    Subd. 3. Licenses; permits. Applications for licenses or permits issued pursuant to this
section shall be submitted with a fee prescribed by the commissioner pursuant to section 144.122.
Licenses or permits shall expire and be renewed as prescribed by the commissioner pursuant to
section 144.122.
History: (5345) RL s 2131; 1917 c 345 s 1; 1923 c 227 s 1; 1951 c 537 s 1; 1953 c 134 s 1;
1957 c 361 s 1; 1975 c 310 s 4; 1975 c 351 s 1; 1977 c 66 s 10; 1977 c 305 s 45; 1977 c 406 s 1;
1983 c 359 s 9; 1985 c 248 s 70; 1986 c 444; 1987 c 309 s 24