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To: Cicero
...At one time, health authorities used to look for Typhoid Mary or her equivalent, and if necessary put them away to keep them from spreading communicable diseases and starting new plagues. Nip these deadly plagues in the bud.

My mind flashed on Typhoid Mary, too, so I did some research on her.

(Typhoid) Mary Mallon was born in Ireland in 1869. It's theorized that her mother transferred the bacteria to her at birth. At the time the concept of a "carrier" (someone who could spread disease without actually getting it themselves) was not well known. Typhoid Mary proved the concept by infecting hundreds and killing scores while working as a cook. She was quarantined but later freed on the promise she would no longer prepare food for others. She broke her word, started another outbreak, and was recaptured. They locked her up for life, and she died in captivity in 1938.

Seversl NYC statutes were cited in her quarantine commitment procedings, wonder if they're still on the books? Anyway, the case proves that at one point in time, it was legal to restrict behaviors or even imprison people for the medical safety of others. Wonder what happened to that idea?

40 posted on 12/10/2010 12:18:43 PM PST by ZOOKER ( Exploring the fine line between cynicism and outright depression)
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To: ZOOKER; wagglebee

Killing someone with a disease leaves them just as dead as killing them with a gun.

Knowingly and willfully infecting others is premeditated and is murder.

Those people will face the judgment of God for it some day.


43 posted on 12/10/2010 12:45:38 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: ZOOKER

Well, it is difficult, because carrying a disease isn’t the same thing as a crime, unless you communicate it deliberately. But I think the government has always had the power to quarantine deadly threats, and if necessary take them out of circulation.

As I recall, the AIDS epidemic first came to America from Africa courtesy of a gay Canadian airline pilot, who flew across the country visiting gay bathhouses and gave the disease to a number of people.

It could have been stopped then. But that would have been politically incorrect. Gay activists worked to protect AIDS carriers and pass laws keeping their names secret.

Ironically, no one has suffered more than they have from this stupidity. But it’s not unlike the black poverty pimps who profit from keeping their fellow blacks miserable and dependent on them.


48 posted on 12/10/2010 1:26:44 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius.)
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