Individual Liberty v. Public Health

In Typhoid Mary, Mary Mallon is isolated on North Brother Island from 1907 to 1910 and again from 1915 until she dies in 1938. Mary Mallon is striped of her civil liberties and is unwillingly quarantined to preserve public health. This brings about an interesting issue, an issue that is just as important today with regard to AIDS as it was nearly a century ago with typhoid. Many have suggested, then and now, that if an individual endangers the …

…members of the community too and their rights are just as important. Isolation does not eliminate the spread of disease. In some ways it may actually help facilitate the spread of disease. Yet, some states in the U.S. are considering using isolation to lessen then spread of HIV/AIDS in the country. One can argue that isolation goes against democracy, against the Constitution, and against the very foundation the United States is built on.