A firm believer in professional responsibility, Furnell was in deep water from the first day he took over as sanitary commissioner of Madras and its 30 million inhabitants in May 1880.
The gross negligence of the physicians who cared for Steve Biko, an apartheid-era South African political activist who died of injuries inflicted while in police custody, illustrates how dual loyalty—toward patients and, in this case, the state—makes performance of professional duties difficult.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):966-972. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.mhst1-1510.
Amy Fairchild, PhD, MPH, Ronald Bayer, PhD, and James Colgrove, PhD, MPH
A brief history of public opposition to disease surveillance in the U.S., despite the documented success of this tool in recognizing and managing threats to public health.
The Epidemic Intelligence Service, by Douglas H. Hamilton, traces the history of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, with details about the service’s response to actual and potential epidemic outbreaks.