Topic 37: Epidemic Education

Carol:

Typhoid Carol

The Malone name runs through my father’s family: his uncle Malone DeWitt,  grandmother Anna Malone, her mother Indiana Malone and at least one Mary Malone in every generation. They grew up in Tennessee, Alabama and Texas, a far spell from the New York of a more infamous, Mary whose last name was pronounced Malone but spelled “Mallon.” This Mary AKA “Typhoid Mary” immigrated to New York from—anyone, anyone?—Ireland in the early 1900’s and soon gained a reputation for her culinary skills in the kitchens of the New York upper-crust. Unfortunately, her cuisine came spiced with a “healthy dose” of typhoid fever bacteria that sickened and even killed members of her employers’ families. Finally, medical investigation pointed to a link between her and the spread of typhoid, and she became the first identified healthy carrier of the disease. She probably would have been a footnote in history except that after agreeing not to work in the food industry again, she was released from quarantine only to resurface 5 years later as “Mary Brown, “ infecting 25 people served her cooking at Sloan Hospital for Women in NY (source: “This Day in Tech": wired.com).

He's actually our 10th cousin

Well, grab your ear plugs and face mask because you have just been exposed to the germs of another plague carrier, who takes every opportunity to sneeze and cough family genealogy in your face.  The virus isn’t deadly, but you know you have been exposed when your eyes glaze over and your mouth opens in a huge yawn every time Typhoid Carol grabs you and says “Guess who’s my 16th cousin 42 times removed?” *     --------------->

Or, you may have an uncontrollable urge to turn the TV commercials up louder when she yells out “Omigosh, look at this incredible castle ruin in Aberdeenshire, Scotland that was the home of Gilbert Keith, my 15th great-grandfather!”  At her worst, this spreader of the deadly dull will bore you to death. She not only exposes her family to the infection but anyone she meets: neighbors on the morning walk, casual friends in the grocery line at Fry’s, readers of the “Daily Theme.” She knows she is making her family and friends sick—and tired—but SHE CAN”T HELP IT! The more she learns, the more she is compelled to share.

The current epidemic of minutia peculiar to the Family History bug is just one permutation of a life-long disease, manifesting itself whenever Typhoid Carol takes an interesting class, reads a fascinating book, or watches an unusual documentary. Words spill out uncontrolled at the dinner table or on a long car ride; the pitch of her voice getting higher and the volume louder. “This Malcolm Gladwell book is soooo fantastic. Can I just tell you about one study in Outliers? Just one?”  Well, the Carrier can never stop at Just One of anything.

You may think this disease is NOT one of epidemic proportions, that it’s not really infectious, but the evidence is there. Her husband has caught the bug, which has mutated into Motorcycle Mania and Bird-Brain Disorder. WE CAN’T HELP IT! We are passionate carriers. We think everyone should catch the disease until it becomes an epidemic. Education: help spread the word.
 

*He's actually a lot closer relation than that.

Source: Typhoid Mary

Megan:

Educating on Epidemics

Last year, the back of my head started going numb. It would last about 5 minutes, and occurred several times a day.  I was concerned so I consulted everyone’s favorite tool for self-diagnosis – the Internet.  When I listed the symptom in the search engine, a number of possibilities came up. I eliminated epilepsy and stroke, but went for the other worst-case scenario. Within five minutes I had made an appointment with my real doctor because I knew I had MS.

Assuming the worst seems to be a symptom of the human condition. Mainstream news sources have capitalized on this by using sensational headlines to sell their product, and when they aren’t describing soaring crime rates and terror plots, then Health scares work just as well. Bird Flu, SARS, Swine Flu, Pandemics…

Out of curiosity, I looked at the Health pages of the two news sites I scan every day – BBC and CNN.  Today, the main headline for both is the cholera outbreak in Haiti. But below the main headline, the two sites seem to take a different approach reporting health stories. BBC’s headlines have an informative tone, quoting the doctors directly in the headlines:

           “Blood group ‘affects fertility’”
           “Aspirin ‘cuts bowel cancer cases’” 
           “Depression gene ‘fixed’  in mice” (How did they know the mice were depressed? asks my mother)
           and “Hard to read fonts ‘aid learning.’” 

(That one is interesting -- if you make something hard to read, a person is more likely to remember it, once he's deciphered it.) 

There are a couple of warnings about malaria in India, and an ‘unsafe’ drug in herbal tea, but for the most part, these headlines don’t have the same sensationalism as the American CNN.

Today’s headlines on CNN:

              “Raisinets recalled on peanut fears”
              “Health reforms side effect- Scams” (as if no one ever scammed a doctor before    
                                                                          President Obama passed the reforms…)
              “Teens may not reveal drug use”  (duh). 

                                                                        
More interesting though, are the titles of some of the regular columns on the site. “The Empowered Patient”, “Toxic America”  and “Egg Safety.” I understand that salmonella is a very dangerous microbe, but it’s not limited to eggs… who would have thought there would be enough concern about the safety of eggs to warrant an entire column?

Anyway, when I went to see the doctor, I didn’t tell him I had MS. I only described the numbness. I was surprised though when he used a light to look at the back of my eyes and gave me a number of tests to check for muscle weakness. I was in the office for an hour, by far the longest I had ever spent with an NHS doctor.  Then he sat down and asked me what it was I thought I had. When I told him he nodded and said, “That’s what I thought too.” I almost died on the spot. He also told me that the Internet brings people into his office every day convinced they have life-threatening illnesses. Then he told me what I actually had.

The Internet is the most convenient way for people to “educate” themselves about health issues – convenient, but hardly reliable.  Without a real education, people don’t realize that epidemics are incredibly rare and that some conditions (pinched nerve) are more common than others (MS).