Typhoid Mary was well aware of what she was spreading after being forcibly quarantined on more than one occasion. Not so much accidental as willful denial of all the evidence she was told. As an asymptomatic carrier, she didn’t believe that she had (and was spreading) the disease, despite masses of evidence that she was responsible for numerous outbreaks.
I have to assume that she was initially in denial because she herself was asymptomatic, but after being forcibly quarantined, and having the responsible bacteria cultured from her gallbladder, any denial at that point was not so much being unaware as the branch of insanity called being unwilling to accept overwhelming evidence. The fact that she usually moved on right after an outbreak, and used multiple aliases would seem to indicate that she was aware of a link.
Perhaps my statement should have been phrased “her behavior would seem to indicate that she was well aware of a link between herself and outbreaks even though she persisted in outward denial, and the sheer amount of information and forcible quarantine would lead any rational person to accept the overwhelming evidence”
That being said, the human capacity for embracing contradictions and denying overwhelming evidence is an interesting beast, and maybe she did truly believe that she was being unjustly persecuted (and was not a carrier).
And people still wonder why I refuse to fly.
Tho’ I happen to know a fella who flies on business reasonably often, and just keeps saying “no” when asked to remove shoes, go for an advanced screening, go for a pat-down, etc. ; he says invariably they just give up and say “it’s that bleeping bleep fellow again…” and off he flies. Makes me feel safer!
So now I’m wondering what kind of criminal case might have been assembled against her, back in the day. These days, we’ll prosecute someone who knowingly infects a partner with HIV, and to my knowledge, no one has yet claimed ignorance of germ theory as a defence.
But then, what kind of slippery slope would it be, to press charges against people who are insufficiently diligent about vaccinating their own children? The mind boggles.
That is a pretty cool belt buckle, i can see why they’d want to confiscate it!
Also are you carrying large amounts of cash or anything else I might like?
If you ask me, parents who refuse to vaccinate their children on philosophical grounds are unfit to raise children. It’s medical neglect, and those parents should be handled legally in the same way that parents who refuse to let the doctor set a broken bone, or prevent a school nurse from treating a severe wound are. It’s ethically and morally despicable, and I don’t care if that position offends people. It’s too important of an issue for both the child’s health as well as public health to handle with kid-gloves as it were.
And if you ask me, giving that kind of authority to the state, “for the sake of public health”, is a cure that’s worse than the malady its supposed to fix.
Don’t get me wrong, I drink my flouride, I’m current with my shots, I tell people to get their kids vaccinated. But I also thing we’re over-doing it with the shots. Too many at once, and many of them aren’t being given at an appropriate time.
When the security state overreacts to legitimate threats, it weakens the groups immune response.
4. The agent has no idea what a real gun looks like.
5. The agent is an alien and the gun looks perfectly real to her/it. Cool, but not the best candidate for a T.S.A. agent.
(Edit to escape my list item numbers. Discourse believes I should have started at 1.)
So you’re saying that the hundreds of pediatricians, general practitioners, epidemiologists and biologists who developed the CDC’s vaccine schedule got it wrong?
“Too many too soon” doesn’t make sense when it comes to vaccines because children (and adults) are exposed to hundreds if not thousands of novel antigens every day. Vaccines are extensively tested for safety and efficacy, yet many parents let their children play in the mud, but you won’t hear me complaining about those parents.
I get that we like to feel in control, and that we want to be independent from the government. But not vaccinating your kid, when there’s no biological contraindication, is child abuse in my book. It puts the kid at an unreasonable risk in order to make the parent happy, and that’s wrong, and shouldn’t be tolerated.
Public health and safety are not pass/fail. The experts in medicine are no more perfect than the experts in security. If the vaccine specialists are just a tiny hair too aggressive, a vanishingly small percentage of children are vulnerable to complications. Too bad, so sad, at least herd immunity is preserved, right?
A lot of tools are gun-shaped. Glue gun, solder gun… And many people travel with tools, whether for work or crafts or to maintain ability to repair things they carry with themselves. Isn’t it better for everyone to ease up on the paranoia than to chase vague shape similarities?
