The Most Dangerous Women In America Reflective

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Youtube link

You may now find on Blackboard a link for the documentary we watched in class today. It is in the Public Health and Government content folder. I will be returning the paperwork you all completed during class on Thursday. You may find those questions helpful in brainstorming and developing supporting evidence for your argument, for example, the death rate of typhoid fever. In addition to the talking points discussed on the assignment instructions you may also wish to consider some of the following points that could be used to argue either side:

  • The public health offices laboratory tests results versus the cultures Mary sent out on her own. They were conflicting bodies of evidence.
  • Mary never stopped cooking which resulted in her second quarantine. Conversely, the city never paid her like they did the other healthy carriers to stop cooking. You could argue they found her other means of employment or that the employment was not comparable in terms of salary.
  • Mary was for all intents and purposes “healthy” yet they sent her to North Brother Island, which was full of TB cases. However, she was in her own cabin and not in direct contact with the TB cases.
  • Surgeons attempts to treat Mary with experimental treatments and surgery-was that ethical? Where they trying to kill her or where their efforts genuine
  • The role of education-George Soper and Josephine Baker tried to explain to her the concept of being a healthy carrier. Was it Mary’s fault for not listening/ understanding or could health officials done a better job at explaining her situation and the new science proposed by Koch?

You have a lot of flexibility to argue either side and you may use any supporting evidence you deem necessary. You do not have to use any of the above points if you do not want to

Mary Mallon was one of the first identified healthy carriers of typhoid. It is estimated that she is responsible for 51 confirmed cases of typhoid and three deaths. 1 Public health officials and the Mayor of New York forced her to be quarantined on two separate occasions for a total 26 years. In approximately 700-1,000 words address whether you believe her forced isolation was justified and discuss the ethical implications. In your argument, you may want to elaborate on US laws regarding quarantine and the role of immigration. Remember to think about the right of the individual vs the right of a society to remain/maintain health and what are the legal and ethical implications for the side you choose to support. Think about that by the time she died health officials identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi that weren’t forcibly confined.1 Are there any examples of people are diseases that parallel what happened to Mary? This assignment will be worth 30 points.

Source: Brooks, J. (1996). The sad and tragic life of Typhoid Mary. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal, 154(6), 915.