The Most Dangerous Woman in America

[Kire]

Examine the complex case of Typhoid Mary, a cook who ws quarantined for life against her will in the early 1900s.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/typhoid/

[izzie]

1. Odd case but I think she would have been let go if she would

not be a cook. I do not think she understood what was going on. It is like these young kids with VD and it goes right over their heads.

[Spinzonner]

2. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"

Sad but true

[pretzel4gore]

3. but 'rightwing' means the privileges of the few trump

the needs of the many!
but i guess you're talking about the reality-based world versus faith-based(??)

[prole_for_peace]

4. my brother's comment was..

"her name on the application should have told something. Typhoid Mary ...sheese"

but seriously, we both agree how horrible. we just use humor at totally inappropriate moments... funerals, presidential inaugurations...

[Senior citizen]

5. I've thought of Typhoid Mary often,

particularly when I learned how many non-drug-using, monogamous housewives have unwittingly gotten AIDS from their husbands and were unable to seek treatment because the husbands' doctors were prohibited from warning them that they'd been exposed, so as not to violate the husbands' privacy.

Not that there's a double standard, just that our laws value your husband's privacy over your life.

[FizzFuzz]

7. w/r/t "not violating his privacy"

I had an experience at work. Certainly not disease, life or death related, but a colleague was sexually harrassing me personally, and also using his work computer to post obscenities to people at an online community. The IT help desk refused to check his archives because they "couldn't invade his privacy"

:mad:

[athena]

6. First of all, I think that they could have had her cooperation if,

instead of attacking her and demonizing her, they had treated her with a modicum of respect, calmly explaining the situation to her and asking for her cooperation.

Second, a true scientist would not have wanted Mary locked up. A true scientist would have wanted to know why Mary was not infected, what was making her immune. The answer could have helped make other people immune to the disease also.