Deviant Criminology
Dr. Richard Weaver Jr., Heather Kenney, and Rachel Czar take listeners on a journey through the world of true crime. With their unique careers in the criminal justice and academic world; they work to provide an entertaining and educational experience for listeners. This podcast examines many areas of true crime including; the formation of laws, cases that defined caselaw, and crimes that impacted the world. Please join us on this journey as we transition from professionals in criminal justice and academia to budding podcasters.
Deviant Criminology
Typhoid Mary: The Woman Behind the Legend
Mary Mallon’s life raises fundamental questions about health, freedom, and the societal treatment of individuals deemed dangerous. This episode explores her transformation from an immigrant cook to an infamous health threat.
• Mary Mallon's early life and journey from Ireland to America
• The emergence of typhoid fever linked to her cooking
• George Soper's investigation and the controversial claims
• The ethical implications of forcibly quarantining Mary
• Her later years under alias and tragic outbreak at Sloan Hospital
• The cultural legacy of “Typhoid Mary” today
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www.deviantcriminology.com
so this episode, I think, is kind of one of the ones that starts to give the irish a bad name. So we wanted to go with something again, another light kind of light, light hearted, but very informative. This isn't really crime as much, as kind of gets into more a little bit of ethics, medical issues, breakouts, what is quarantine, what's not quarantine. We're four years late of doing this during COVID, but we didn't exist then and we just thought it's kind of an interesting story to share and to have a conversation about from some of the dilemmas and situations that the individual here was put in when she actually hadn't committed any crime.
Speaker 3:Technically we existed, not the podcast.
Speaker 2:That's true. We existed. The podcast didn't exist, so I have fucked this whole thing up, so I feel like it should probably start over. But you don't have to restart the episode, you can just cut it.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Dickhead. Ah I think it's fine. I say at this point just leave it as it is.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 3:So this week, on Deviant Crology, I'm richard, I'm heather and we're going to talk about the story of mary malone, also known as typhoid mary so her tragic story tragic for a lot of people involved, including herself begins on September 23rd 1869 in the small town of Cookstown County, tyroid, ireland, where Mary was born into a world of poverty and limited opportunities. Little does anyone know that this infant will grow up to become one of the most controversial figures in public health history. When her mother was pregnant with her, her mother had typhoid fever, and we don't know how much of an impact that has on her future, but it's something that's interesting. As a non-doctor person, I wonder what kind of causation was there? Fast forward to 1884, and at 15 years old, mary, like many of her other compatriots, set sail for America. Leaving behind the economic hardships of rural Ireland, she arrives in New York City, to a bustling metropolis teeming with opportunity and danger in equal measure.
Speaker 2:The reason you're seeing all of these Irish immigrants coming to the United States is just the poverty that's being put on them by the English government and just the English rule that was going on at the time and the persecution of the Catholics that were there. That saw America as a new starting ground. It was kind of again seen as a land of opportunity. But there are many great songs about like the hills of America and what they saw is the great opportunity only to come to a country that treated them as third class citizens, making it hard for them to find any type of employment or get out of poverty, which unfortunately kind of becomes the basis of what happens to young Mary. So Mary starts her American journey as a domestic servant, but her culinary skills soon set her apart.
Speaker 2:By the turn of the centuries she's established herself as a cook for wealthy families in the New York City area.
Speaker 2:It's a position of respect, offering financial stability and a step up in the domestic service hierarchy. So she goes from kind of being this maid to being able to cook. I'm gonna say it's kind of odd because I, you know, I eat irish food like irish pubs. I drink, you know, my fair share of irish made liquors, but they're not exactly known for like culinary skills, like shepherd's pie, um, corned beef and cabbage not what I would consider like high class, uh food. It's amazing but it's not high class. But yet somehow she's like really honed her culinary skills to the point where the aristocratic elite in New York are like we want to hire her, which has put her on this new level of being able to at least make some financial movement for herself in the right direction. But as Mary moves from kitchen to kitchen, a sinister pattern begins to emerge. So between 1900 and 1907, typhoid fever follows in her wake, striking down family members and servants alike in the households where she works.
Speaker 3:Around 1906, we find ourselves in Oyster Bay, long Island. The wealthy Warren family has rented a summer home and they're looking forward to a season of relaxation. Instead, they're hit by a devastating outbreak of typhoid fever. Six out of the 11 people in the household fall ill. At that point, george Soper, a sanitary engineer and expert in disease outbreaks, begins his investigation to find the source of the infection. Initially he suspects contaminated clams, but as he digs deeper, his attention turns to the family's recently hired cook, mary Mallon.
Speaker 2:His investigation uncovers a chilling pattern In seven out of eight households where Mary had worked over the past decade, typhoid outbreaks had occurred, and the puzzle pieces are starting to fall into place so I mean a I give them props that they see this as a health emergency, like we're talking early 1900s, so like you're actually putting people to investigate this and he's smart enough to go through and start looking at the background of who's coming into the household.
Speaker 3:So that's kind of impressive actually for that time period which one of the sources I read said that they had rented that house and the person who owned the house was worried that they would get a bad reputation as being a house where there was illness. So they had hired or somehow got him to be hired to investigate this because they wanted to basically clear the house of any nefarious reputation.
Speaker 2:Like we're renting this out. This is our moneymaker. We are not the center of all disease here. Exactly so, in March of 1907, soper tracks down Mary Malone to her current workplace, where she's at a Park Avenue penthouse. So she's moved to a different family. Now what follows is a scene straight out of a crime thriller, which is perfect for a true crime podcast. Soper confronts Malone, requesting samples for urine, feces and blood for analysis. I don't know. Some random dude shows up. Like there's not like this time period, there's not really good identification. He's just like yeah, I'm from the public health sanitation department. I need you to pee in this cup. Give me your poop and blood sample. I probably would be like nah, bro, like who the hell are you, especially a man approaching a young Irish immigrant woman. So Malone, feeling accused and insulted, reacts violently. She threatens Soper with a carving fork, forcing him to beat a hasty retreat. So yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, that sounds like it would be creepy. I wasn't in that situation. But a dude shows up saying give me your body fluids.
Speaker 3:I'm sure it was. And, on the flip side, he probably would have had a better result if he had been a creeper, if he had just been like, hey, I'm a really big weirdo and I'll pay you 50 bucks for some urine and some pee. She probably would have been like, all right, instead of saying I think you're making people sick, now give me your pee and your poo.
Speaker 2:Yeah there's a government official, though he didn't have 50 bucks probably he's probably underpaid yeah she started with a knife.
Speaker 2:He's like this is not worth my time going back to more people, but actually he's undeterred. So soper compiles a five-year employment history of malone. The evidence is damning, though. Out of eight families that she had worked for, members of seven claim to have contracted typhoid fever. So soper's efforts to obtain samples from malone continue to be unsuccessful, which that's kind of vague like that kind of makes it sound like he's hiding in toilets and stuff like trying to catch samples, and that just seems kind of weird the way it was worded in different ways I read it. But all right, whatever works for him. He even offers to write a book about her and give her all the royalties, but alone remains uncooperative.
Speaker 3:Which I think again, you know you say I'll write a book about you and give you some royalties. That seems very speculative in nature. How do I know you're going to follow through with writing a book? And even if you do, who's going to buy it? And even if they do, how am I going to get this money? It seems kind of far-fetched. Again, I think he would have been better off with the you know, here's 10 bucks pee in my cup for me.
Speaker 2:And that kind of like sounds like the early 1900s version of the. I'm a Nigerian prince, just send me your stuff and magically a million dollars repeal in your bank account.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if I was a young woman, which I can't imagine you two can, I can't. Yeah, I'm not cool with this Like this. Everything this guy's doing A makes him seem like more of a stockish creeper, because he just keeps showing up asking for your body fluids. And again, how do I know you're really who you say you are?
Speaker 3:And he keeps saying that you're sick and you're making other people sick. I feel fine, I'm healthy.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you're talking about. You're a weirdo, get out of my face. Yes, and that's the big thing, is that they're accusing her of this. But everything we'd known at this point medically is this is communicable disease. Here are all the symptoms. If you get it, you have it. But she's never been sick. So why I'm not going to give you this stuff? Because I think that, right, there is another factor in that is she's not feeling sick. So it just seems like this guy's creeped. Like I'm not sick. You're telling me I'm sick, I'm carrying this disease and you want all my body fluids and stuff, like something just comes off wrong to me.
Speaker 3:But at the same time I have to admire her because she does tell him no. And she's, you know, an Irish immigrant young woman. And here's this presumably white guy in authority who shows up and says give me these things. And she says, no, oh, she's got some strong will there to stand up to him and say screw you, I'm not giving it to you.
Speaker 2:That's the power of the Irish. That's right, like the anti-government, and I wonder if that played anything into it Again, like that's super speculative. So but the coming from Ireland, you're very distrustful of government officials and everything and you know all the suspicion that would have been around the way the Irish were already being treated in 1900. And suddenly he's a government official a government official quote unquote showing up saying I need your body fluids.
Speaker 3:So once he can't convince her to give up those bodily fluids, he turns to the real government officials, the New York City health authorities, and they send out Dr S Josephine Baker, who is an advocate for public health, and she approaches Mary, you know. Hopefully better results, but nope, she's unsuccessful as well in obtaining the samples. So in 1907, the city officially takes this drastic action where Mary is forcibly arrested in the interest of public health, taken to a hospital where she attempts to escape, but eventually they're able to run a test and find out that she is positive as a carrier for this salmonella that causes typhoid fever.
Speaker 2:That causes typhoid fever. So a like just the fact that she's asymptomatic, like in presenting, I think would have been a medical like so many doctors would have jumped all over that to try and understand that better. Cause, from what it sounds like, the things I've read about this and I've read some stuff about her, a when I was in EMT and stuff, cause it's just one of those interesting things.
Speaker 3:But then all the way up till even during covid, like of course she came back around um, and then also talking about like 100 years since the last big outbreak, um, it was very interesting that, yeah, the thought of somebody who was asymptomatic, like we didn't know that you could be a carrier and not infect other people the results at that point in time are really shocking because people, like you said, didn't really think about asymptomatic carriers and she's identified as the first asymptomatic carrier of salmonella that causes typhoid fever in the United States and she had high levels of that typhoid bacilli in her stool sample, despite showing no symptoms of the disease at all herself.
Speaker 2:So this leads to what will be known as her first quarantine. So Mary is quarantined on North Brother Island in 1907 and she is about to begin a three-year period of isolation that will change her life forever. So during her confinement, mary is subjected to repeated interviews and tests. Health authorities discover massive amounts of typhoid bacteria in her samples, indicating that her gallbladder is the source of the infection. So Malone vehemently denies being a carrier of typhoid, though, like she's never been sick, she doesn't feel any symptoms and I mean there's got to be part of her that's willing to resist this because a, as we see, she's combined for three years, but the only opportunity that the irish really had at this point were these servant type jobs, especially for women doing it from ireland. So to damn her with this and put that on her would take away her entire possibility to make money and really put her into poverty. So so when offered the option to have her gallbladder surgically removed, she refuses.
Speaker 2:Early 1900s, you want to cut me open? No, I could understand that. It's worth noting that at the time gallbladder remover was a dangerous procedure with a high mortality rate. So I'm not sick, I'm not feeling sick, but you want me to go through this potentially deadly surgery for something I don't have. Now, looking back, like I can understand it, like we've damned this woman with, like the whole you're typhoid Mary and everything, but when you looked at the historical context of what she faced and the options that are given to her, it was basically poverty, death, death, poverty, institutionalization.
Speaker 3:Which, as somebody who had their gallbladder taken out, I don't think that I would go in and have it taken out just because you tell me I'm getting other people sick and I feel perfectly fine either. It's not very, not very fun, not a vacation.
Speaker 2:And again you're. You're being asked to trust the government and trust medical doctors when you come from a place that really teaches you distrust of government officials.
Speaker 3:Yes, and so, as this whole debate is going on, there are legal battles going on and in 1909, she attempts hexamethylene tetramine, which she said was threatening to damage her kidneys. But from what I understand and what I looked up, it said again I'm not a doctor that it appears to be something that's used to treat UTIs and it's an alternative to antibiotics and it basically works in the acidity of the urine, but if it's in an alkaline environment it is ineffective and it also is the base component for C4, which was kind of interesting. So the complaint ends up being dismissed by the New York Supreme Court, but the case sparks significant public debate and ethical discussions and some of the medical experts are questioning the necessity of her being forced into quarantine and arguing that she could be taught to manage her condition without isolation and without getting other people sick.
Speaker 2:And I mean this does get into so many ethical, constitutional issues because she's not at this point committed a crime, but you're forcing her into quote-unquote quarantine in an institution where she's not allowed to leave that sounds, and you're forcing her to give you samples and do medical tests. That to me sounds like imprisonment. So I guess maybe back then it was a little bit different than the constitution didn't uphold because she was an Irish immigrant. I don't know how you would justify taking away somebody's freedom, except that we've always kind of had that exception for the safety of others. So I don't know. To me it's just, I understand it but I don't agree with it.
Speaker 3:And I think maybe they could have likened it to a mental health hold, where you haven't committed a crime with that either. But they separate you and put you in an institution because you're a danger to yourself or others. Maybe it was that same type of idea You're a danger to yourself or others, therefore, we're going to put you in this medical facility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's one of those. I get it, I just don't like it. It feels wrong.
Speaker 2:Yes, Like and I agree, though, to a point there comes to they're. They're asking her to work with them Like and but like they these two doctors, milton Rosenaw and Charles Chapin are are working to try and say that they don't think the quarantine is necessary and there are ways to manage her condition. But you have to be willing to teach her that. But she also has to be willing to do that and, as we'll learn as we're about to get into this next section, that kind of seems to be a problem. She's just an uncooperative to a point ass in this as well. She's not an innocent bystander.
Speaker 3:you didn't know she had it, but once she finds out she's still not willing to do anything about it she's in complete denial yes, and completely uncooperative so in february of 1910, after nearly three years of being quarantined, she's released under the condition that she will never work as a cook again, and she agrees to initially find work doing laundry. And unfortunately for her, when you're doing laundry it pays about half the rate of what it would pay to be a cook. So this isn't just a minor step down, this is a major step down for her minor step down.
Speaker 2:This is a major step down for her, and not just the step down in that happy. But because she was so good, there was a potential as a cook to move up. More is the reputation that could have brought her into better people's service, and somebody may have heard of her skills as a cook and almost poached her and made her an offer for more money, so you're damning her to even more chance of poverty Again. When we're looking at where she came from, her Irish background, language, the way she looked, she was already going to be restricted, and now you're taking that away. And it sounds like, though, that they're trying to give her the tools, though, and she's not being cooperative, and that happens again.
Speaker 2:Next, because the story doesn't end there. Struggling financially due to those low wages, mary eventually returns to cooking under various aliases, such as Miss Brown. This decision will have dire consequences, unfortunately so. In 1915, while working as a cook for the Sloan Maternity Hospital, under a false name, malone is linked to a typhoid outbreak that infects 25 people, resulting in two deaths. Now, in my theory, now she's crossed the line right now I mean a.
Speaker 2:She chose a maternity hospital, as you said when we were kind of writing this up and talking about it. You're endangering children and everything else. You know you're a potential risk and now you've infected 25 people and caused two deaths. Now I don't know what the charge minimum would be, but to me it's the endangerment of others.
Speaker 3:And especially again, that maternity ward. You're talking about people who are already at high risk because we're talking about infants, not just children, but infants who are newborns. You know, pregnant moms are immunocompromised. We know this. I don't know how much they knew then, but these are the people who you definitely don't want getting sick with this. It'd be like her working at a nursing home Same type of an idea. So at this point, since she knows that she's a carrier, then you know it gets that question of intent right. To me it's like a negligent homicide, because she knows and has been informed. You have this. This is a risk. If you do this, then people could die. She did it anyway. People got sick and people died. So to me it's like a negligent homicide. She didn't mean to kill them, but she also wasn't doing what she needed to do to prevent them from getting sick and dying I mean, another good example of this was like in the 1980s and early 90s with hiv.
Speaker 2:Like when you had sex workers and then knew they had the disease, but that was their only way to make money. They had to make the decision do I take the risk and go back out? And? And actually a better example of that is in pornography. A lot of porn stars got infected because one or two people had the disease, but that was the only way they knew how to make money and it kind of spread and the industry didn't want to shut things down. There's a whole documentary about this.
Speaker 2:I don't know how this just popped in my head, but when I worked in HIV services, a little bit like I'd watched this documentary and what they were talking about was that this was all they knew how to make money. This was their only way to make money, but they knew if they had HIV or reported that they had HIV or AIDS, they were done Like you're out of the industry, so they didn't tell anybody. And then, lo and behold, like dozens, if not a lot more, people ended up spreading this disease. And that's kind of the same thing she's doing is I have to make that choice between living and possibly infecting other people, not realizing the repercussions of your damning people to death.
Speaker 3:Right, and I think for her it was even more complicated because she didn't feel sick Like I think, at least with HIV, I think there was more of an understanding where if you got the diagnosis, you knew what it meant. You knew, you know, like I might not feel bad, but that doesn't mean I don't have it, whereas with her, I think that medically, where we were technology and information-wise, it was, I think, harder for her to wrap her mind around.
Speaker 2:You're telling me that I'm sick. I'm not sick, yes, but on the other side, she had to have seen the pattern, right. Like we're showing you, all these people are linked and the only common thing is you. Yeah, it's like there are 10 people hit like by a baseball. The only common link is they're all in this baseball stadium. Maybe we need to put a net up to protect people, right, and it's the same thing. She's just not catching on that. There's this common theme that's happening and she's at the center of it.
Speaker 3:Exactly so. Following that outbreak at Sloan Maternity Hospital, mary's arrested for the second time and she's returned to North Brother Island for what will be her final and longest quarantine. And this second quarantine ends up lasting 23 years, from 1915 until her death in 1938. During that time, she's allowed occasional supervised day trips to the mainland, but largely remained isolated. While she was quarantined, she worked as a technician at the Riverside Hospital Laboratory in North Brother Island, preparing medical tests. This arrangement allowed her to continue. This arrangement allowed her to contribute to the hospital's operations while remaining under close supervision.
Speaker 2:So it's I mean she's just under arrest. I mean, again it comes back to she made to appoint that choice, like you were told you had to see. You made an agreement with the state that they would release you from the institution if you agreed not to do these things and you went, did it anyway, and people have now died so unfortunately. Uh, as the years passed, malone's health began to decline and on christmas morning, 1932, she's found paralyzed on the floor of her college, having suffered a stroke. She's moved to Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island where she lives for the next six years. On November 11, 1938, at the age of 69, mary Malone dies from pneumonia. Her body is quickly removed and buried in St Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. Not only nine people attended her funeral, a stark reflection of her isolation, even in death. Now I will have to say I'm kind of surprised in this fact that they quickly buried her and very surprised that they didn't take her to do medical testing on.
Speaker 3:Maybe they had already gotten all the information they could.
Speaker 2:At least there's part of me that at least she got that piece. Yeah, like you know, they forced her in this, they did this to her, maybe something or somebody somewhere said you know what. We've done enough harm to this woman, like, let's at least let her be at peace, and it may also help that she was Catholic. Right, I mean be at peace. And it may also help that she was catholic, probably. I mean, okay, that's a big assumption which I am going to apologize that I assume that all irish people are catholic, that's not. But it's probably a good assumption that she was catholic or raised catholic.
Speaker 3:So they would have hopefully given her that right to at least be at peace well, and she was buried at saint raymond's cemetery, so maybe that you know again the indication of whether or not she's Catholic, if she was at.
Speaker 2:St.
Speaker 3:Raymond's Cemetery as opposed to.
Speaker 2:Yes, and at that time definitely you would have had to been Catholic to be buried at a Catholic cemetery. So ha, it wasn't discrimination, it was truth.
Speaker 3:So her story doesn't end with her death. Her case becomes a landmark in the public health field and because she's the first known instance of a healthy carrier being forcibly quarantined, it raises a lot of significant ethical and legal questions that we continue to debate, even through to today, which we saw all through the COVID. Do people have to wear masks? Do people have to quarantine? Are we allowed to say you're not allowed to have gatherings of more than this many people indoors? Those were all questions that came up.
Speaker 2:Well, and we've seen it even with HIV and AIDS today Like there's been discriminatory policies and laws that have tried to be passed where, like if you had HIV and you spit on somebody, that you could be prosecuted for attempted crimes or something, or it could be an enhancer to an assault, like on a police officer, but not taking into account the science that it can't be transmitted that way. So you're really punishing people for having a disease instead of more science-based public health policies. So this kind of was one of those that really brought attention to these things and how public health can work with people and create programs to help people return to life, educationally ready, to go back out into society and protect them and the people around them the term typhoid Mary.
Speaker 3:I'm sure most people have heard of that. Many people might not realize that this is where the term had originated, but it enters common use at that point in time to describe anyone who is unknowingly spreading disease or misfortune. And this linguistic legacy demonstrates this lasting impression that her story has had on popular culture. I know, even as a kid, when you go to the birthday party and one person you know would feel sick and you say, oh, don't bring them, they're going to be the typhoid Mary and get every other kid at the birthday party sick.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've heard that and used it. So now I'm going to be honest, like I'm probably not after this episode, because I feel really bad for this, for her, like A, just the life she had, like it is sad, like and all, just because of what you were born with. Like, again, you do have to kind of put a little bit back on her. She made the choices she did, but looking back, I just feel like bad for her and it's sad that she felt that, you know, and the only option she did have like there was really not. She had to do that because I was the only source for her to maybe make a little bit of money. And now she is forever going to be known as typhoid Mary, not Mary Malone, not the Irish immigrant that came here for a chance. She's just going to be known as association with spreading diseases across different countries and areas and parties and gatherings and schools and everything else.
Speaker 3:But they don't even know what her actual impact is, because you know they attributed those two deaths to her, but it's estimated that she infected between 51 and 122 people. They don't know how many people she actually got infected and you know. As far as the deaths, you know there was three confirmed but unconfirmed. They've had estimates as up as many as 50 people that they've estimated died because of interactions with her. So, even though it looks more limited in what we're talking about, that we know of, there could be a lot more stuff that happened because of her that just couldn't be proven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that that goes back to just to a point her negligence. You know anything before the moment they said we know you have this she's not responsible for, not by meant guilt, not by mint guilt, but when you get to the so, anything before she knew innocence, I give her that. But once you knew anything after that, she has to be taken responsibility for. And I think a public health laws have developed from this, even if not directly, but holding people accountable for spreading infections. But at the same time almost luckily, she wasn't prosecuted for something because she was at that point knowingly putting other people at risk of injury or bodily harm. I mean, I don't know, maybe an assault charge could have fit there because she knowingly was causing people physical damage. I don't know, you know a lot better than I do.
Speaker 3:Usually assault involves some type of a touching, though I don't know. You know a lot better than I do. Usually assault involves some type of a touching, though I don't know, maybe more of a poisoning type thing. I don't know. Criminal negligence, I think, would be the where to go with that that there you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean she's. I mean, either way, she was going to be institutionalized. So I just feel it again, like the social worker in me just feels some before. But malone's story inspired like the various cultural references. Marvel Comics created a supervillain named Typhoid Mary and her life story inspired works like the 2013 novel Fever Again, probably not the nicest way to remember somebody, but on the flip side, we have to go back that she willingly, um went back to an industry that she knew was going to infect people.
Speaker 2:So as we kind of finish up this episode and look at the life of mary malone uh, malone we're left with more questions and kind of answers like was she a victim of circumstance? Um, I don't think we really have to question she was a public health threat? But there definitely was a public health threat, but there definitely was a victim of circumstance, and that she didn't have a lot of options in that time period. Her case continues to spark ethical debates. We're not really having a debate right now when we're talking. I think we're kind of on the same pattern.
Speaker 2:Um, some argue she was responsive for the deaths she caused. I'm kind of in that theory, like she knew what. She was responsible for the deaths she caused. I'm kind of in that theory, like she knew what she was doing, even unknowingly Well, unknowingly before. But once she knew, she's definitely responsible. And there's others that think that her forced quarantine was a violation of her personal rights. Again, I think when you made the choice to return and you'd made an agreement did not go back to that industry and you did, and 25 people get infected and two die, maybe more died. You've lost that.
Speaker 3:Which I think more on that side they could argue the primary quarantine, like when they first took her into custody, when they first removed her. Because I think you're right, after she makes the agreement, you've made the agreement, you made your bed. Now it's like a contract you have to honor what you promised to do. But, like the first quarantine, what due process was she provided? How did they come to the decision that she could be sent off to this island, you know, was she given an attorney to represent her? Was this just some health official who said, okay, that's it, take her out there? Or was there a judge? Obviously there's no jury who's making the decision that she needs to be quarantined.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean I agree Like you're taking somebody's autonomy at that point. It's not until you prove it Again. You're holding for three years doing testing. I mean you've turned her into a lab rat.
Speaker 3:That's exactly what she complained about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there I think, if you're looking at it from a criminal justice standpoint which you're getting into because you're kind of to a point putting this person in isolation in prison is almost the minority report effect. There's like the pre-crime theory they didn't know she had it, they suspected, but they. There's like the pre-crime theory they didn't know she had it, they suspected, but they still held her until they could prove it. So we think you may commit a robbery, so we're going to hold you until you do something criminal, but since we've got you locked up, you won't do it. But you didn't do so. I think we didn't know you were going to do it.
Speaker 2:So there's just a lot of questions I have and I think we need to continue to have those conversations because we're more and more, unfortunately, with globalization and we talked about this during COVID and we're talking about it now with kind of all these different diseases that are starting to pop up and spread again that we need to have educational programs, as we have, but we also as a society need to like, not just refute, the science because we don't like what it is or it's coming from a group of people we don't like, but instead be safe and err on the side of caution, because we don't want to kill people or injure people or get people sick because of our own ignorance and or focused on what we believe is our rights over the rights of other people to not have to get sick or die. So I think that's what advocacy is really important about.
Speaker 3:And I think it's also interesting, when you look at different countries and different cultures, how these different aspects work and combine. As far as in a lot of the Asian countries, they mask. They mask all winter. If they have the flu, it doesn't matter, it doesn't have to be something that's a major illness. If you're sick, you mask. And it's that social responsibility of taking care of the community. I do this because I care about you. I'm not going to be selfish and do what feels comfortable for me. I'm going to mask so that I don't get you sick. And it's just cultural differences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it definitely goes from that view that you have one group that believes that it's my job to care about society and then the flip side of well, it's society's job to allow me to do whatever I want Exactly society's job to allow me to do whatever I want, exactly. Basically, that what I've seen more and more of of fuck you, it's about me, and like there are people now that like that's bumper stickers and t-shirts like fuck everybody, I'm an asshole. I think that very much more speaks to kind of what we're talking about with becoming more socially aware and caring about other people. Because if everybody felt that way, how many more people you know? If she had continued that and the government has been like, all right, it's her freedom to go out and infect people, how many more people would have died?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:So eventually we kind of have to get over this individual mentality. In my view and I'm not telling you how to believe just I don't think everybody needs to be an asshole. I fill that gap plenty myself. I think we just need to be more willing to put ourselves out there to protect other people sometimes. So maybe it is that day I don't I feel sick. I don't go to work that day because I don't want to get my coworkers sick, or I don't want to get my wife or my kids sick instead of well, fuck you, if you're going to hang out around me, you deserve to get sick as well, because I'm going to do what I want.
Speaker 3:And I don't want to miss the party.
Speaker 2:I don't want to miss the party, so everybody's going to die. Thank you, typhoon Mary. So thank you for joining us for this episode. Until next time, stay healthy, stay informed and have a good week.
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