Thursday, April 17, 2008

Public Health - What's That?

Hey, ah - you didn't wash your hands. You need to do that when you're making food - you can make people sick.

BD: I can't wash my hands.

Beg pardon?

BD: I've got a skin condition. Allergic to soap. It happens, you know? So ... it's just out.

Golly.

BD: Ya.

You're fired.

BD: Well see what the Human Rights Tribunal has to say about that, Mr. Smarty.

Oh. Dear. Lord.

No, really. Lady works at McDs for about twenty-three years, develops a reaction to soap they use. Tries to negotiate for a position where she doesn't have to wash as often. Except that's not really the way McDonald's rolls; because of national and provincial law, and because making people sick is a sub-optimal business strategy ... everyone washes their hands. A lot.

I have a lot of sympathy for the lady. Having a reaction to chemicals sucks. Not having the ability to work at a place where you want to work sucks. Lady worked at McD's for twenty plus years - she must have loved her job.

Lot of suckage.

Her employer .. well they fired her and they might have been able to avoid it, or make accommodations for her condition.

So it's a pretty unfortunate situation all around.

Anyway, after the Human Rights Tribunal gets through fiddle-fucking around and ordering McD's to pay the woman off .. McDonald's must also "cease the discriminatory conduct or any similar conduct and refrain from committing the same or similar contravention." [1]

If someone can't wash their hands, just suck it up. What's more important - good public health [2] or the dignity of the individual? Get with the program, Citizen.

Me, I'd rather not eat food that has prepared by a person with feces under their nails. But I'm sorta reactionary that way, I guess.


[1] Read the PDF. Maybe I'm missing something.

[2] What really irks me is that what we're getting to here is that the HRC is saying that it's okey-dokey for Typhoid Mary [3] to do her thing - act as a carrier and make a whole bunch of people sick - and we can't do a damn thing about it if it would hurt her feelings.

Say goodbye to a hundred-plus years of best practices for Public Health and stomping down hard on epidemics. Say hello to a world where we know how to stop epidemics but we're not allowed to. Because it would hurt people's feelings.

We're not there yet. But you can see it around the corner.

[3] Which the lady in question is not, and is not at all close to being - I'm stretching a point.
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