The Present Illness

ICE's Dystopian Daycare (+ Gisèle Pelicot)

• Alyssa Burgart & Arghavan Salles • Season 1 • Episode 20

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0:00 | 1:09:28

Go Team USA! Weird Workout with RFK Jr; ICE harming kids in detention; Gisele Pelicot speaks out about her husband's abuse

Dystopian Daycare in Dilley

Pelicot’s Book Release

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

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Credits

  • Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
  • Editing by Alyssa Burgart
  • Theme Music by Joseph Uphoff
  • Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Alyssa Burgart (00:00)
You

Arghavan (00:02)
Okay! Alright, get it together. hey there, fellow nerds!

Alyssa Burgart (00:11)
So sorry.

Arghavan (00:16)
So many things going on.

Hey there, fellow nerds. Welcome to another episode of The Present Illness, the podcast where two physicians try to make sense of a world that is increasingly sick and very underdiagnosed. I'm Arghavan Salles a surgeon scientist and your friendly neighborhood doom scroller in residence.

Alyssa Burgart (00:39)
And I'm Alyssa Burgart an anesthesiologist and bioethicist who tracks news and health law like they're EKGs full of spikes and surprises. The present illness is where we cut into some of the toughest issues in public health, politics, culture and ethics with a scalpel in one hand and a meme in the other. Topics we cover can be intense, so please check in with your body mind if you have the capacity for that today. And if you're in the car with little ones, you might want to pop your headphones in.

Arghavan (01:03)
A big thanks to everyone who's listening with some extra love to our subscribers and followers and a warm welcome to anyone who just stumbled in from the Winter Olympics.

Alyssa Burgart (01:12)
my gosh, I have been loving watching the ladies win. Have you? ⁓

Arghavan (01:17)
Absolutely. I'm always in it for the women, you know,

always will be cheering and rooting on the women.

Alyssa Burgart (01:23)
I just saw that ⁓ US hockey women, US women's hockey just beat Canada, which is like a huge upset.

Arghavan (01:30)
Amazing.

That's amazing. Go, go US women's hockey. saw that wasn't there. ⁓ I'm gonna get it wrong because I haven't followed as closely but there was some kind of big win for either it was a goalie US team or it was someone who had a lot of goals. can't remember what side it was. I'll look it up and put it in the show notes but there was some sort of like somebody having stellar performance on the US women's hockey.

Alyssa Burgart (01:35)
Absolutely.

Fantastic.

Fantastic. Well, clearly folks, this is not a sports podcast.

Arghavan (02:03)
Ha!

That's correct. Although I have been watching a fair amount, not as much as I used to in past, but like of the figure skating. So beautiful.

Alyssa Burgart (02:06)
⁓

⁓ I love figure skating. Love it.

I also, really enjoy just, I mean, I'm not going to watch like all of all of it. It's I'm not into sports ball generally, but I love seeing clips of just these incredible athletes doing these sports that you otherwise don't see, you know, like cross country skiing or like I can't even remember the name of the event where they have like a gun on their back and they have to like cross country ski and like shoot a target and then they like do it again. All I know is they look very fast.

Arghavan (02:43)
Well, the one that's, and there's so many that are diabolical in the Winter Olympics, like the cross-country uphill skiing. What do you mean that that person can run a mile cross-country skiing uphill in six minutes when most of us cannot do it flat on our regular feet on like regular pavement? That is incredible and also sounds like torture.

Alyssa Burgart (02:50)
Ooh, ooh.

⁓

Arghavan (03:05)
And then there's that skeleton, right? The one where you're like going head first down this like icy, How does it like, where in your life do you decide that that's the thing that you are going to be an expert on risking your life every day to be the fastest one to go at first down this path? I'm just fascinated by that decision making.

Alyssa Burgart (03:07)
⁓ Yes! Yes!

I will

Well,

and like as someone who has responded to many a head trauma in the operating room, you know, like when people need to have surgery, like I cannot watch that. I see it and I go, nope, nope, too dangerous. Can't even watch it. It just looks like work.

Arghavan (03:43)
I absolutely agree.

And I wanted to tell you, since you said things that you cannot watch, did you see, I just want to check in before we get into our main topics, did you see this ad that Kid Rock and RFK Jr. put out?

Alyssa Burgart (03:56)
Okay, so purposefully, no, no, no. So I have purposefully not watched it because somebody mentioned it to me the other day and we were like in a big meeting and they were like, well, don't watch the RFK Kid Rock video. And I just was like, well, I already now have an image in my head, but I definitely haven't watched it. actually, it started to come up on my feed on TikTok or like somebody was gonna make a comment and I was like, nope.

You can tell me about it, I'll allow it.

Arghavan (04:28)
I have some wise decision making. So for folks who haven't seen it, hopefully you know who these two people are, Kid Rock and R.F.K. Jr. So they are making this, it's part of their terrible campaign that we've talked about before, the real, eat real food campaign that Mike Tyson is also part of. That's basically a fat shaming campaign.

Alyssa Burgart (04:45)
Also, who is taking their dietary advice from Mike Tyson? The man ate an ear.

Arghavan (04:49)
I mean, I hope no one is taking any

advice from any of these men, genuinely. anyway, so in this video, it's supposed to be, again, about eating real food, but they're working out, I guess, Kid Rock and RFK Jr., which like, first of all, nobody needs to see either of them working out under any circumstance. And...

Alyssa Burgart (05:08)
I

mean, there's a reason I don't go to like a 24 hour fitness. I don't want to watch other people exercise. Gross.

Arghavan (05:14)
Yes. And it's weird. It's like weirder than you think because for good portions of it, RFK Jr. is just wearing jeans and no shirt. And you're like, again, why? don't know why he has this weird propensity for working out in jeans. It's weird. It looks uncomfortable. It makes me feel uncomfortable. Also put your shirt on. I don't need to see you shirtless. And so he's like, at one point, riding a stationary bike, they're in a sauna and he's riding a stationary bike and Kid Rock is behind him doing pushups like on the

wooden seats of a sauna and then they're switching and then Kid Rock is on the stationary bike and RFK Jr. is doing pushups and Kid Rock gives the middle finger to the camera. what, I don't understand what kind of campaign they think this is. then, well, yes. So RFK Jr. lowers himself into some kind of bath. I don't know if it's an ice bath or if it's a hot bath. I don't know what it is, but he's wearing his jeans still, which makes.

Alyssa Burgart (05:57)
Do they jump into an ice bath after that? Because that would be really on brand.

Arghavan (06:12)
People ask if he's a never nude. So just a slight tangent here for folks who watched Arrested Development, there's this whole storyline about one of the characters, Tobias, being what he calls a never nude. So even like he's on his way to take a shower in this house that they're all like living in this house at one point. And somebody in the family comes across him and then he takes off his shower or his bathrobe. And that's when you see that he's got jean shorts.

under his bathrobe because he's a never nude. He doesn't ever actually get nude. He always wears a jean.

Alyssa Burgart (06:43)
There's another,

I can't remember what episode it is, but there's also an episode where he's crying in the shower, biting on a bar of soap, and he is wearing his jean shorts.

Arghavan (06:55)
Right, because he is never nude. So when we see RFK Jr. luring himself into this bath wearing jeans, it's like, is he also a never nude? It's very perplexing. And then he gets out and then like goes to find Kid Rock. And actually there's a moment when he's like, again, half naked and he's like, where's Kid? Like, I don't know if that's supposed to be like funny. You know, it's just weird. The whole thing is weird for like a normal mind. is very hard to process. What?

they're trying to convey here aside from these guys are weird. Okay. And then at the end they do both get into that one looks like it might be an ice bath. Still RFK Jr. wearing his jeans, of course. And then they drink whole milk because that's really important for your health.

Alyssa Burgart (07:38)
⁓

I think that they claim they're drinking raw milk.

Arghavan (07:43)
Well, they say it says whole milk. you know, there was this all started back a few months ago when they had their whole drink milk campaign, which all of this is so absurd. So the whole thing is we there are many people who believe they were planning to encourage folks to drink raw milk, but that probably somebody got to them and said, hey, that's probably not wise given people will get sick and some people will die and then it will be your fault. So it is our

Alyssa Burgart (07:45)
Mm.

Mm.

Arghavan (08:11)
many people's strong suspicion that they modified the campaign to whole milk instead of raw milk so they could put milk in it.

Alyssa Burgart (08:16)
OK.

So last week, we talked about how ballerina firms got shut down for their raw milk. Well, now they're saying, this is just a little quick tangent, but now ballerina firms is no longer going to sell ⁓ raw milk, although they say it's a business decision not due to pressure. And I kid you not, there's three bills now in the Utah legislature to decrease

Arghavan (08:22)
Correct.

I'm not.

Alyssa Burgart (08:45)
the amount of oversight over places that produce and sell raw milk. So in response to the fact that regulations, which are meant to protect public health, were effective and helped prevent the public from being seriously harmed by the bacteria that is oftentimes carried in raw milk, ⁓ instead, Utah is considering making it easier to poison its citizens. So that's a fun fact.

Arghavan (08:50)
from.

We are in the upside down for sure in like so many, so many ways. ⁓ But the last thing I wanna say about the milk campaign is that there are a number of people who think this, another aspect of this milk campaign is racism because it's signaling like ability to process lactose, which white European descendants are more likely to not have trouble processing lactose than some other.

Alyssa Burgart (09:41)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (09:42)
racial and ethnic groups. Part of me thinks that's giving these people too much credit. I don't know that there's that much processing going on up here when they make these campaigns, but I wouldn't put it past them in terms of the nefariousness. If it occurred to them, I would believe that they would do it. I'm just not so sure that they're putting two and two together.

Alyssa Burgart (10:02)
Well,

I think that there's so much of ⁓ diet culture, of maha culture, of healthism that is all very white-coded, white supremacy versions of and fitness. So it's very white eugenics-coded. ⁓ And so when you know what to look for, you kind of see it everywhere.

Arghavan (10:19)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

That's true, that's true. Anyway.

Today is our 20th episode.

Alyssa Burgart (10:35)
It sure is. I'm so, I mean, no lie guys. I'm so proud of us. So proud.

Arghavan (10:40)
We're doing it. I don't know who's listening, but we're showing up.

Alyssa Burgart (10:45)
I won't lie, I mean when you were like, we should do a weekly episode on the hottest news in social media, I was like.

We can try real hard. you know, we've found, I feel like we found our groove and I'm having a lot of fun.

Arghavan (11:03)
Me too, and I hope our audience is getting something out of it.

Alyssa Burgart (11:07)
I mean, well, we're hearing from folks that they are, so we'll believe them. We'll believe them. I do.

Arghavan (11:11)
This is true. Good point. Good point. Thank you for that reminder. ⁓

So on that note, should we get into our first topic for today?

Alyssa Burgart (11:18)
Let's do it. Well, you guys know that we love a downer topic. That's our thing. ⁓ We do our best to make it ⁓ lighthearted for you to learn about the worst news happening, mostly in America. ⁓ But I think it's really important. mean, as I've talked about, I work at a children's hospital. I am a pediatric anesthesiologist and a pediatric ethicist. So I spend a lot of time thinking about the health and well-being of children that we take care of. ⁓

there is so much overlap between the ⁓ violence, the rhetoric around ⁓ immigration enforcement, the racism around immigration enforcement, that it's all showing up in the hospital. There's so many things about ICE that are showing up in the hospital. And we talked previously, you know, obviously about Alex Preti. And when I look at the

the news that some really heroic journalists are managing to get out of these ICE facilities to see how children in particular are being impacted. because kids don't vote, little kids, some of them can't write, they're little. And it is awful to see. So the Trump administration in the first administration became famous for

for family separation, for separating young children, mean, children of all ages, but especially young children from their parents, kids that wouldn't have known their own name, their babies, kids that, you know, they had no records to reunite kids with their parents. So the things that are happening in the news now, which I'm going to tell you about, I just want to remind people of the really big national conversation we had nearly 10 years ago.

about how horrible it was for children to be detained by ICE, for children to be separated from the people who are meant to care for them best, their parents, ⁓ and the lifelong problems that that causes for kids. And so again, in a country that loves to say that we care about kids, there's all these ways that we demonstrate that we don't. ⁓ And so you and I have talked a lot about the measles outbreak and how

Arghavan (13:38)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (13:44)
problematic that is, how we're at risk for losing our measles elimination status. And it's going to come as no surprise to people who have been following that, that there have now been two confirmed measles cases out of the Dilley Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. And this is one of these very large, ⁓ large scale ⁓ facilities that's really being used to ⁓ round up immigrants and dump them into these places. And they're unsanitary. There's all sorts of reports about

you know, these are large congregate settings. You have a lot of people in a small space. There are not enough bathrooms. There's not enough opportunities for things to be cleaned. And so it should come as a surprise to no one that illnesses are running rampant ⁓ through that facility. And I mean, the massive measles outbreak that we are in now started in Texas. Now it started in a part of Texas that's

Arghavan (14:40)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (14:43)
Gaines, Texas, which is a little bit further north and a little bit further west. But it's not a surprise that there's people getting the measles. There's people who didn't have access to health care, so they didn't get vaccinated. Or we have kids who are too little to be vaccinated who are especially at risk. And the measles is so contagious. So it's really easy for the measles to rip through an area like that. The other thing is because the measles has such a long incubation period,

Arghavan (14:59)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (15:13)
people can be exposed and spreading it to each other for quite a long time. ⁓ And that means that we are very likely to see pretty much anybody who's unvaccinated in this detention facility is very likely to develop measles and develop a rash to develop symptoms. And so we're gonna have to watch that pretty closely to see, ⁓ we've already had almost a thousand cases of measles in the United States.

this year in 2026 and it's only the middle of February. ⁓ And so this is something to watch for sure. I've seen these detention centers referenced as ⁓ epidemic engines, which I think is a really apt turn of phrase for the fact that like, it's just so easy for people to get sick. And when you think about ⁓ small children, you know, anybody who's spent time with kids, especially your kids in daycare, you have kids are hanging out together.

They're like snotty and they're gross and they like touch everything. And, you know, it's just easy to get sick when you have little kids around. And so it's just one more way that one, these children should not be in detention. It is unsafe for these children to be in these conditions. It is also unsafe for adults to be in these spaces, also vulnerable to these illnesses. So I don't want to say that it's not important that adults will also get sick.

⁓ And then there's been a couple of specific cases of children being, well, first of all, we know that they're detaining way too many kids. There's like hundreds and hundreds of kids who are in detention and there are limits that are supposed to be placed on how long these kids are in detention because we know that this creates toxic stress for these children. We know that this is very harmful. They're really not supposed to be there for more than 20 days. This was based on something called the Flores Settlement that happened in the past.

Arghavan (16:47)
Mm-hmm.

Good

Alyssa Burgart (17:07)
20 days is a very long time for a small child to be in a detention facility. ⁓ But many of these children are being held significantly longer periods than that, and there's really no plan to safely take them there. So there's reports of kids being there for more than five months. These kids are clearly not getting access to education. We know that they're likely not getting access to adequate or sufficient nutrition.

Arghavan (17:09)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (17:32)
There's reports of kids being fed contaminated or moldy food and containing things like worms. And so when I hear in context you bringing up this like stupid video from RFK Jr. telling people that they should eat better, and then we are literally taking our most vulnerable people in our communities and feeding them garbage food that is literally not safe for an animal to eat. ⁓

And so when I hear that just the gross hypocrisy of saying, make America healthy again, but we're going to incarcerate a bunch of extremely vulnerable children and we're going to actually make them sick. We're going to expose them to illnesses. And we're going to not only are we not going to feed them healthy whole foods, we're going to feed them food that is too spoiled to eat. ⁓

Arghavan (18:02)
Mm-hmm.

It's absolutely

disgusting. And as we've talked about before, the whole idea that this is what pro-life is, like that this is a party that is quote unquote pro-life when not only are they doing this to children in these detention centers, but they refuse to feed children at school and actually will say all sorts of very weird things to people who are like, hey, maybe we should give kids healthy food at school. Like folks remember when Michelle Obama was

Alyssa Burgart (18:48)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (18:49)
the first lady and she this was a big campaign that she was trying to do was like let's help people get better access to healthy food including specifically children and people were so rude about it and totally berated the idea and acted like she was some kind of communist or something and She wasn't just saying it. She was trying to actually make plans that would actually improve accessibility to healthy food

By contrast, now we have the other party in office and they are withholding resources from people who need it, including those in ICE detention centers. But then at the same time, putting out all these ads about how it's our fault, essentially, that's the messaging, right? It's our own fault that we aren't eating well, aren't eating healthy, aren't exercising, aren't healthier than we are ⁓ because we're making bad choices without any acknowledgement of the system.

Alyssa Burgart (19:36)
shaming.

Arghavan (19:49)
that we are all living in where it is, we've talked about many times before, we're not going into details, but there's food deserts and it's much easier to access unhealthy food than it is to access healthy food. And they're not making any changes. Their grocery prices are going up, up. Salaries are not increasing. ⁓ The economic experience of everyday people has nothing to do with the Dow Jones being over 50,000 or whatever, right? So as Pam Bonney was saying last week, so there's just this like massive disconnect.

Alyssa Burgart (19:55)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (20:16)
I know, Pam Bonney, sorry I had to remind you of that.

Alyssa Burgart (20:17)
I'm so sorry.

Well, because I keep seeing these videos of people being like, there is never an appropriate time to use the word C-U-N-T ever. And they're showing like, a year ago that they had said that and then flash. Then fast forwarding to today saying, Pam, Bondi is a, and then cutting it off. So that's what I thought of when you said that. just, well, and I, know, this is the thing, right?

and the chronic stress of living in America right now. mean listen you chronic stress is also something that's contributing like yeah it's super stressful when you can't afford to buy food. Yeah you're not going to be able to eat as well and your poor your poor little adrenal glands are just working overtime all the time and you're in the sandwich generation you're trying to raise your kids you're trying to take care of your parents you're desperately trying to keep your home or or find a place to live for people who are intermittently unhoused and I think that

Arghavan (21:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (21:17)
This issue that you've brought up reminding people about Michelle Obama's program. And then when you think about what's happening to these brown kids, these kids that are not white who have been detained, the just outrageous racism of messaging that we are receiving around what does it mean to eat well, who is allowed to eat well, whose bodies are allowed to be healthy, and whose bodies are entitled to access to adequate nutrition.

Arghavan (21:47)
Yep. And also I want to get back to the detention centers. But the last thing I want to say is that to your point about stress, like our cortisol levels are higher when we're stressed and that makes it harder to lose weight and it helps our bodies to retain weight. So all this stress around all of these issues, like if you are a person who's worried about getting picked up by ICE or your neighbor getting picked up by ICE, in addition to all the things that you mentioned about our own economic stressors.

Alyssa Burgart (22:06)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (22:15)
None of that is helping us to be healthy. But anyway, go ahead.

Alyssa Burgart (22:17)
Well, so I'm really, I'm glad that you brought up this issue of cortisol and its relationship to weight gain because I will tell you, I got trolled by the internet. was watching this, I was reading an article actually about Alex Preti several weeks ago and one of the embedded ads was saying, wanna lose those extra pounds? Go on a cortisol diet. And I about threw my phone at the wall because I'm going, do you know?

What would lower my cortisol level? It would lower my cortisol level to not be watching healthcare workers get murdered in the streets. It would lower my cortisol level to know that in ⁓ cities across America, there weren't just random people being racially profiled, pulled out of their cars and thrown in detention centers. It would lower my cortisol level to know that there were not tiny children being put in these detention centers.

Arghavan (22:48)
Uh-huh.

Alyssa Burgart (23:12)
It would be great if every day I didn't open up the news and find a new shitty homework assignment from the federal government for a class I didn't know I was taking. Okay, like every day I'm like, ⁓ a new vaccination problem? Fantastic. ⁓ new weird questions from families that make no sense. ⁓ what has RFK been saying online that is driving parents to have new fears that are absolutely fully manufactured?

Arghavan (23:30)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (23:38)
by our government. like, yeah, bitch, I would love to be on a cortisol diet. It's called stop being a terrible government. That is the cortisol diet that I need.

Arghavan (23:49)
I also would like that same cortisol diet. And I'm speaking of, okay, again, we're gonna get back to the detention centers, but R.F.K. Jr., speaking of crazy, I shouldn't use that word, but inappropriate things that he says, he recently said, I'm sure you saw this, that we can control or cure, I think is the word he used, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder by changing our diet. And these are the things that you're seeing when you're interacting with patients and parents are asking questions about their children.

All of that confusion and fear and rising cortisol levels is due to him saying things that are totally not scientific, not evidence-based, and they're not helping anybody, and in fact, they're causing quite a lot of harm. Anyway, but please tell me more about what's happening at Dilley. By the way, I was looking up earlier, I think it's the main family detention center that we have currently in use, even though ICE is spending

Alyssa Burgart (24:43)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Arghavan (24:47)
their parts of their massive budget to buy more and more detention centers, but I think that's the main one where families are currently being taken and I had seen ⁓ the headline recently of a I think it was a two-month-old who ⁓ Was deported so yeah, can you tell us more about that?

Alyssa Burgart (25:01)
That's, yep.

Yeah, so I'll tell you actually about Juan Nicolás. So he's a two-month-old baby. ⁓ He and his mother were detained when he was one month old. So this is a, I mean, I'm sorry. When you have a one-month-old baby, you're generally not taking that baby to the grocery store. You're not trying to expose them to all sorts of random things because they have very...

immature immune systems. Like they're building those immune systems. There's a bunch of things that kids can't be vaccinated for. They can be vaccinated, for example, for hepatitis B, but there's a bunch of things that you kind of have to wait until they're a little bit older, like the measles. They're not old enough to be vaccinated against the measles. So anyway, this really, really terrible situation where this baby is detained with this mother and the baby becomes really, really sick.

He developed severe respiratory infection. He needed to be taken to a hospital. ⁓ And apparently he had a health emergency. This was like last Saturday, I believe, where he was apparently choking on his own vomit. Like he was having a hard time probably breathing and coughing. And also he's probably, you know, he's ⁓ presumably either breastfeeding or receiving some sort of, ⁓ you know, formula. And

Arghavan (26:18)
Mm-mm.

Alyssa Burgart (26:22)
apparently was vomiting or like babies also spit up. And it can be really difficult for a baby who's that little when they're trying to do a lot of really complicated things. They're protecting their airway. They're swallowing. Swallowing is actually a very complicated activity. And so he was having these respiratory issues. They have no medical facility apparent, sorry, no medical personnel in this facility early, early in the morning when this was happening.

Arghavan (26:37)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (26:53)
He was eventually taken by Monday, was eventually taken to a hospital. And apparently they say he was rushed to a hospital. So that tells me that he was significantly worsening. ⁓ And he was diagnosed with bronchitis, which is like inflammation of the bronchioles. So like your trachea attaches to your lungs via your bronchi. And he was really sick. And so he was in the hospital.

Arghavan (27:03)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (27:19)
getting whatever treatments, presumably some respiratory therapy. I'm sure that they did a chest x-ray to see kind of what was going on. And then he was returned. This hospital then just discharged him back to this detention facility, which that is not a safe discharge. And that is one of our obligations when we are discharging somebody from the hospital is like making sure that they have someplace safe to go.

Arghavan (27:24)
Okay, okay.

No.

Alyssa Burgart (27:42)
⁓ And if they don't have a place that meets those standards, what are we able to do to make it as safe as possible for that patient? And so to discharge for clearly it clearly this child was not safe in this detention facility, which is why they were denied care for this long. And then they were discharged back to that same place. And, know, when I think about. ⁓ And there's a lot of, you know,

Arghavan (27:57)
Okay. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (28:11)
Child Protective Services is an important aspect of how is it that we make sure that kids who are experiencing serious harm, how is it that we get them connected to the services that they need? There's a of mixed feelings about the ways that those organizations are sorted. But I just, you know, I feel very confident that if a CPS caseworker went and examined the conditions in the Dilley Detention Center, that they wouldn't be like, yeah, this totally meets our standards. Like, there's no...

Arghavan (28:40)
No, there's no

way.

Alyssa Burgart (28:41)
Way.

Arghavan (28:42)
that?

Alyssa Burgart (28:42)
yeah, well, so the other

thing is that so this kid Juan Nicolas, he gets discharged with, back to this terrible detention facility and then they deport him. They deport him and his mother super early on Tuesday morning, a two month old baby. Who is sick.

Arghavan (28:54)
A two month old. The thing is that child

I mean, they've done this with so many children. early in this administration last year, there was a child who was less than 10 years old and had cancer, was on the way to get, ⁓ go to a doctor's appointment. And they ⁓ deported the whole family with the exception of one child who was left, who had not come on that visit and was at their house, a teenager, I believe. But they deported everyone. I mean, they prevented this child from getting treatment for cancer.

Alyssa Burgart (28:59)
Anyway.

yes.

Yeah. Yeah. It's terrible.

It's terrible. And then there was another case that's been in the news the last couple of days, which is a little girl named Amalia because there's a lawsuit related. She's 18 months old. She was hospitalized for 10 days because she also had a severe respiratory illness. She had like a combination, I think of like COVID and ⁓ RSV. She had developed viral bronchitis and pneumonia. ⁓ She ended up needing to be on oxygen before she could be discharged.

And then she was discharged back to this detention facility with some medications, like some nebulizers, some nutritional supplements, and apparently they were taken away and confiscated at the facility. And so this little girl, 18 months old, lost 10 % of her body weight. Well, like for context, for people who maybe haven't recently had an 18-month-old in their midst, an 18-month-old kid weighs between 20 and 25 pounds usually.

And so if you think about, like, if you weigh 20 pounds and you lose two pounds, you are no longer within, like, the typical range of weight for a child that age. Like, that's very dangerous. And so it's just another example of how abysmal it has been for these specific kids. ⁓ And then what you had just brought up that I absolutely want us to talk about, we'll put a link in the show notes for folks to look at.

Arghavan (30:27)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (30:45)
ProPublica, you all know, our pod, we are a fan of ProPublica. We are, are fan girls. We love ProPublica. Y'all are doing amazing reporting. ⁓ And they have done yet again, incredible, incredible reporting on kids who are in these detention facilities. And so they were able to get access to letters and drawings that were made by children who are in detention. And they have actually taken ⁓

like detailed photographs of these so you can actually read them and then you know they're in the handwriting of these children. ⁓ And they've they've pulled a bunch of quotes that I can read so ⁓ Ariana a 14 year old from Honduras who was living in New York has been in detention for 45 days so more than 20 days. ⁓ Since I got to this center all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression. ⁓ There are.

images of children who have drawn pictures of their families. ⁓ There's one from a little seven-year-old girl from Venezuela who's been detained for 70 days. I don't want to be in this place. I want to go to my school. And that's where kids should be. Kids should be, they should be at home with their families. They should be in school getting education. They should not be in prison. I mean, this is

There is no moral code that would ever say that this is okay.

Arghavan (32:20)
No, unless you're JD Vance and then you say, what else were we supposed to do? If you remember when Liam Ramos was, ⁓ I mean, everybody saw that those pictures I think of this is the young, the five year old boy in the blue jacket, I think in the bunny ear ⁓ hat who was kidnapped by ICE and, ⁓ you know, understandably many people were upset that why was ICE kidnapping a five year old and JD Vance had the audacity to say,

Alyssa Burgart (32:33)
Yeah, yeah. It was so cute.

Arghavan (32:49)
What else were we supposed to do with that five year old? How about leaving with his family? How about that?

Alyssa Burgart (32:54)
JD Vance who is a parent of children. And I mean, and that really again highlights.

Arghavan (32:57)
I think that's maybe the loosest use of the word parent one could

use. I don't know anything about his life, but I'm just guessing from what I've seen. I'm not sure that he would meet the definition of parenting that a lot of people would use, but anyway, carry on.

Alyssa Burgart (33:13)
I just, ⁓ you know, for those of us who have not only are raising children of our own and care about children who are in our communities, like as a person who every day I take care of kids, it is a wonderful, wonderful job. I love taking care of kids. Kids are fantastic. They say really funny stuff. They wear adorable little outfits. They ask great questions. They like to sing and they like...

fake tattoos and they like to get stickers and they like to play with your badge. On my stethoscope, ⁓ I have a rattle that is attached to my stethoscope. ⁓ It's like a lucite clear thing that's got little, it says it's a cloud and it's got pictures of my favorite medicines, but I can shake it when I'm trying to examine a baby and they're like, ooh, shiny. ⁓ And it makes noises, but kids are the best.

Arghavan (33:44)
I like stickers.

You

Alyssa Burgart (34:11)
You and I, you are an immigrant. I grew up in a community where almost everybody was an immigrant and if they weren't first generation immigrants, their parents were immigrants. like the things that we're losing are incalculable. Not as a society in addition to the absolute horrors that are being done to individual children.

Arghavan (34:38)
So in addition to the harm that we're causing individuals who are in this country, many times having fled a country that the United States harmed, mind you, ⁓ and that's what made their country unsafe for them in the first place. But aside from that, I don't think that most of us have a grasp of the reputational damage that's being done to the United States around the world.

because of ICE in particular, and also to be honest, because of our handling of the Epstein files. But these are two major issues that I see folks in other countries commenting on daily. Like what is happening in that country? Why are you all not doing anything to stop this? Like what happened to the rule of law? And as we know, many people are avoiding coming here now, understandably, and I would really not recommend anyone come here if they don't have to.

Alyssa Burgart (35:30)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (35:32)
and we're supposed to be hosting the World Cup and then we're supposed to be hosting the Los Angeles Olympics. And I genuinely don't understand how we're going to purport to be safe for visitors to come for these events when even the people who are already here are not safe, just because we look a certain way or we have a specific accent and we don't happen to have a passport plastered on our forehead.

Anyway, it's all extraordinarily concerning and will take generations to repair.

Alyssa Burgart (36:07)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, one can only hope that the economic impacts are dramatic enough that it gets even more people to recognize what a mess this is.

Arghavan (36:19)
Well, and just harkening back to what we were talking about with the Olympics, like it's been so nice to see a lot of the Olympic athletes that represent this country saying, hey, we don't agree with the things that are being done in our country. And I think that's important, not only for people in this country to see, but for people in other countries to see, because I do think that just the nature of this country being so large geographically and having our population so spread out.

Alyssa Burgart (36:43)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (36:46)
It makes people think that we don't care or that we're fine with what's happening because we're not going to DC every weekend, for example, but we just don't have the same geography that a lot of other countries have. And that doesn't mean that people aren't upset. And I think the majority of people actually are really upset specifically about what's happening with ICE, but also about Epstein. We see a lot of ⁓ people being very angry about that across political ideologies.

Alyssa Burgart (36:57)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. It turns out that, ⁓ you know, it turns out there is a line for some people and it's raping children. Some people, not everybody, not everybody folks, but you know, some people.

Arghavan (37:19)
For some people.

So, of, shall we transition to our next topic?

Alyssa Burgart (37:28)
I mean, I can't wait.

Arghavan (37:33)
I mean, who doesn't love talking about sexual assault? Our favorite topic.

Alyssa Burgart (37:37)
Well, listen,

and this is what I will say. Well, first of all, you and I talk about this because we know that it's important. And I know that so many of our listeners have reached out to us and said, hey, I would never have been willing or able to read about that terrible, terrible topic. But I think what we're doing is we're trying to provide it with some framework. We're trying to give people ⁓ enough to know what they need to know without having to.

Arghavan (37:54)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (38:04)
also deeply traumatize themselves by doing all that research that you're doing. so I just, you know, let's get into it. Let's do it.

Arghavan (38:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, let's do it. Okay, so

today's topic we're going to give the Epstein files a break, although there continue to be developments and just minor note for folks who listened to last week's episode. ⁓ Yesterday, Leslie Wexner did a deposition for the House Oversight Committee. They kindly came to his home in Ohio because that's what you get when you're an 88 year old billionaire who has likely harmed a lot of children. But anyway, and ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (38:35)
and Prince Andrew got arrested.

Arghavan (38:38)
Prince Andrew got arrested and yet Howard Lutnick is still in our government. Anyway, like the brother of the king of England can be arrested, but we can't even get rid of this commerce guy in our government. Anyway, so that's not the topic though. What I wanted to talk about is Giselle Pellicoe, whose story people may remember even if they don't remember her name and I'll remind you in a second what the story is. She has ⁓ published her book and

So background is Gisele Pellico is a woman, a French woman who in 2020 found out that her husband, so trigger warning here as you probably already guessed where this is going, but she found out that her husband had been drugging her and inviting men over to their house to rape her while she was basically knocked out. And he had been doing this for almost 10 years. And it was.

somewhere around 70 or 80 men who were involved in this based on videos, because he recorded all of it. So people may remember in December of 2024 was the trial in France against her husband, but also 50-ish of the men who had been involved. They still haven't identified another 20 to 30 of the men, which is disturbing if you're living there, right?

I mean, it's disturbing regardless. ⁓ Anyway, so the trial was very public because she chose to have an open hearing. She chose to have press and other folks there. ⁓ She waived her right to anonymity as a victim and survivor, which is an unusual choice to have made. ⁓ And so folks may remember that, that made a lot of, it got a lot of publicity at that time for being such an unusual and brave choice.

Alyssa Burgart (40:28)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (40:28)
to

have the testimony all be public. They, in the trial, played a lot of the videos of her being assaulted. She had to sit in a courtroom with all these men who had violated her at the request of her husband, the man she had been with for like 50 years. They had gotten married when they were 19, 20-ish. And she thought he was a safe person, like until this time. So.

That's the.

Alyssa Burgart (40:58)
The depths

of betrayal there, I mean, it's...

Arghavan (41:02)
Yeah, I mean, he was going in case folks don't remember, like he was using this online chat room to find these men and the chat room was called without her knowledge. And so that's where he was recruiting these men and he had intricate plans of, know, he was. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (41:17)
And then these men said they, I didn't know. I didn't know. I'm like, the name of the website sort of told you, buddy. You knew.

Arghavan (41:23)
Yeah, so

this is a good point. In their ⁓ defense at the trial, a number of these men said that they thought she was, ⁓ that she wanted this, that she consented to this, that she was, ⁓ in Gisele's words, that they called her an accomplice. ⁓ Yeah, so it wasn't rape because she was in on it, even though she was drugged and unconscious, and that they found each other on this website called Without Her Knowledge. ⁓

All of them were convicted, just to be clear.

Alyssa Burgart (41:56)
Like how did these guys

get a lawyer? Anyway, sorry. I have so many questions about so many things, but I... Okay, but anyway, her book is out.

Arghavan (42:02)
There are,

yes, so her book is out and I think it's called A Hymn to Life, H-Y-M-N, Hymn to Life. And she did an interview with the New York Times that came out in the last week and I wanted to talk about it because what we saw during the trial was courtroom sketches of different things and reporters summarizing what was happening in the trial, but we didn't hear a lot from her.

Alyssa Burgart (42:19)
Okay.

Mm.

Arghavan (42:28)
The only

thing really that we heard from her was this idea that shame must change sides. And that that was why she had wanted the trial to be open because the shame shouldn't be on the victim. It should be on the perpetrators of these types of crimes of sexual assault. So in this interview, it was really interesting to hear not only about this period of her life, but...

Alyssa Burgart (42:34)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (42:53)
that she really was very happy with this man. She thought they had a great marriage, they had a beautiful family. They had just retired. She was around 60. They had just retired and moved to this small town, Maison, in the south of France, I believe. And that's where they lived when most of this was happening. The first incident was in 2011.

So she describes kind of like, what was she experiencing all these years? Because I think a lot of people go, what do you mean you were raped? The police told her she was raped over 200 times. What do mean you were raped over 200 times and you didn't know, right? Like this is a question that people have and also because we live in a rape culture and we always blame the victim. And she describes in this interview that the first time that happened, now she knows, was in 2011. But what she recalls of that time in 2011 was waking up in the middle of the night and her husband,

what she says in the interview is pretty vague, like that he was doing something funny and that she said, stop it, I don't wanna do that. But then she had already been drugged, so she falls back asleep, she's not really sure what happened after that, but she doesn't wake up until 6 p.m. the next day. And then she goes and talks to him and she's like, what happened? And he's like, ⁓ I guess you were tired. And she kinda just doesn't think too much about it. Like she asked why he didn't wake her up and he says, cause she seemed tired.

But that's weird, right? To sleep till 6 p.m. the next day. Then in 2013, is the next time that she thinks that...

Alyssa Burgart (44:22)
I just want to flag for people this type of sexual assault is called drug-facilitated sexual assault. So there's a very specific terminology for this. ⁓ And so when you're looking in the research for, well, maybe you don't. But when I'm looking in the research, I know you do, but our audience, when I'm looking for things related to that ⁓ drug-facilitated sexual assault, it's the language that we use. And so this is when you hear about, for example, someone being roofied or, you know, ⁓

Arghavan (44:49)
Mm-hmm.

Alyssa Burgart (44:51)
that someone slips something into someone's drink, that it can actually be very easy to drug somebody. And you can imagine that in this situation, when it's somebody that you believe a very trusting and positive relationship with, you're going to let a lot of things go. You believe them. Yeah.

Arghavan (45:13)
Yeah, well, have no reason. Yeah, I mean, they'd been married

for decades at this point. She has no reason to suspect him of anything. And yet in 2013, when something similar happens, she asks him, hey, and she says it herself that she was really kind of joking, but she has one of these experiences where she doesn't remember anything from the night before and her pants look different. She noticed bleach stains on her pants and she's like, what? I don't remember doing anything that would cause bleach stains. ⁓

She goes out to the garden, this is she says in the interview, and she asks him like jokingly, hey, did you drug me last night or something? And then he gets really upset and he starts crying. How could you say that to me? Whatever. has like... Exactly. So he has an out of proportion reaction, but then she feels bad. This is the perversity of it, right? She feels bad. She apologizes. She never brings that up again. And then she goes on to have, we heard some of this in the trial that she goes on to have like all these...

Alyssa Burgart (45:55)
I think he doth protest too much.

Arghavan (46:12)
health problems, has some gynecological issues as you can imagine. ⁓ She also has all these memory lapses, right, where she like constantly can't remember what happened the night before.

Alyssa Burgart (46:22)
because she's like

constantly being drugged.

Arghavan (46:25)
And she, her husband accompanies her to all these doctors visits trying to figure out what's going on with her. At first they tell her maybe she had a TIA, then they're like, well, maybe you have early onset, maybe not early onset, but you maybe have Alzheimer's. And so her, she and her family, she describes so scary and she's like basically preparing to die soon because she thinks she has a progressively debilitating illness. And in the end, as we now know, it was really that he was

Alyssa Burgart (46:41)
So scary.

Arghavan (46:55)
drugging her the whole time. So here's how she found out. So in 2020, this part of the story is I think known that the reason he got caught was that he was filming under women's skirts at a market ⁓ in their town. And so the police arrest him for that. And she describes him telling her and she's like shocked because she always knew him to be this like upstanding guy. And she's like,

What were you thinking? And she's very confused by this, right? This is a man she's known for decades and always thought was like a good person and always took good care of her to her knowledge. Okay. And a couple months later, they both get called in to the police station. She thinks it's about that, like follow-up on whatever the investigation has led to. But what happened when he got arrested for that, looking up these women's skirts, was that they came to their house and they searched.

right, his computer, and they found all these files, these photos and videos in particular of her, but also of their daughter. ⁓ And so when she goes down to the police station, this is a couple months after that happened, she thinks she's going to talk about this upskirting thing, and then they're like, hmm, we need to tell you something. And they start showing her pictures, and she goes, that's not me. And they're like, ma'am, this is your bed. This is the lamp that's next to your bed.

that these are your personal belongings. Like this is your room and this is you. And you can imagine how hard it would be to recognize yourself in a scene that you don't remember, right? Like that you have no recollection of like who was this man who was in this photo? Like anyway, so that's how she finds out is the police showing her images of her unconscious with these men in her room. And that's...

Alyssa Burgart (48:30)
Yeah.

Arghavan (48:45)
kind of where it all starts to fall apart for her family. And ⁓ she has to grapple with this new information about someone she thought she knew. You can imagine how destabilizing that is. She talks about how in some ways she's grateful that she doesn't have a memory of all of these events because she feels like if she did, there's no way she could get past it. ⁓ And so that makes it a little bit more

Alyssa Burgart (48:48)
Mm.

Arghavan (49:14)
I don't want to use the tolerable is not the word but she's better able to cope with it because she doesn't have an inherent memory of Any of it except for like the lack of memory. That's what she remembers But it's obviously a massive betrayal from someone who she really trusted and this issue with her daughter Comes up so her her daughter they don't find that out I think for a while after but the detectives find a couple of pictures of their daughter as an adult

Alyssa Burgart (49:18)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Arghavan (49:44)
And she's wearing underwear that she says she'd never owned and in a position on a bed with the cover pulled back so you can see her bottom. And the daughter, understandably, is very concerned about where did these pictures come from? Why am I wearing clothes that I don't own? What did my father do to me? And ⁓ they had a falling out. Giselle and the daughter.

to over this. And I had heard about this part because people were making comments on my social media posts about, she's not a real feminist or she's not a woman to look up to because she didn't believe her own daughter. ⁓ So I haven't read the book yet, but based on this interview and based on what I've read from Caroline, because Caroline already had published her own book about all of this, what I think happened was that, Giselle, sounds like was not as supportive as one might have.

Alyssa Burgart (50:36)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (50:43)
wished when caroline was upset about these photos, ⁓ And so for a while they didn't talk and now They are folks might be happy to know they are talking. Giselle says daily. They haven't seen each other. I think since the trial ⁓ but she was hopeful that they would see each other soon. ⁓ giselle would like to go visit her ex-husband in prison. That was interesting to me

Alyssa Burgart (50:44)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Arghavan (51:10)
She still has some questions she would like answered, including what he did with their daughter. And that came up in the trial as well. And the daughter, Caroline, had asked him directly. He basically refused to answer those questions. And you can imagine how devastating that must be for Caroline to be like, there are photos of me that I have no memory of. I have no reason to be wearing that. What happened to me? And did my father do it?

Did he bring someone else? You know, like it's terrible to be living in this state of limbo, you know, for all these years for her since they found out in 2020 that he was doing all of this and then that it was four years to get to the trial. The trial was the end of 2024. So those are some of the things that I thought were, or that stood out to me from the interview. Another thing was,

I will just say, I would recommend folks listen if you're interested in this story and understanding more about what really happened here. But I will say there's some parts of it that are hard to listen to. And she describes some of the acts on the video, for example, which I'm not gonna describe here, but it.

Alyssa Burgart (52:20)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Arghavan (52:31)
really terrible to hear her talking about what she saw men doing to her and her husband's role in supporting them. One of the other defenses that some of these men use was that they were scared of Dominique is her ex-husband's name, but they were scared of him and he like bullied them into doing this and she's like, that's definitely not the case. You see it in the videos, like they are partners in violating her in her own world.

Alyssa Burgart (52:56)
I'm sorry

who like what a dumb story. Like that's I mean.

Arghavan (52:59)
I know they can't come up with good stories

though. They're like not capable it as far as I can tell. But now what's also interesting that folks may or may not have followed with this case is that there were two previous rapes, one of which also was a murder in 1991 and 1998 that are outstanding that they think her ex-husband might have been responsible for.

So those are active investigations. I think one of them they ⁓ found his blood at the scene. So that's also disturbing to Giselle, right? To be like, well, this wasn't even just in these last recent years. This has been going on for longer than anyone maybe potentially going on longer than anybody knew. And

Alyssa Burgart (53:54)
I mean, it seems

really weird that somebody would be like a really awesome person for a huge portion of their life. And suddenly in the last 10 years, I mean, not saying it's not possible, but seems suspect.

Arghavan (54:05)
right. No, I agree.

more likely that he hid it quite well. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (54:12)
I mean, he obviously

hid who he was from his wife.

Arghavan (54:16)
Yep, and they talk about it in the trial. She also talks about it in the interview that he had been abused himself when he was younger on a couple of different occasions. Not that that excuses anything, but ⁓ it sounds like he didn't have maybe the most healthy childhood. And they got married quite young, again, 1920. ⁓ So they jumped into this relationship and she talks about how she...

It's what's hard for one of the things that's hard for her is that they had so many good memories. You know, and you don't.

Alyssa Burgart (54:48)
Well, then you look

back and you're like, my entire life a lie?

Arghavan (54:52)
But she doesn't, it's interesting because she doesn't really think of it that way. She's trying to separate somehow. And she talks about this. Like she talks about it. It was interesting as though you're separating laundry. She's like, throw away the bad and then keep the good because otherwise she feels like she loses her whole life. I mean, her whole life is empty if she has to throw away everything that involved him.

Alyssa Burgart (55:00)
Hmm.

I mean, I can't.

I mean, grief is wild and I can only, I can't imagine the amount of stress that she has had to face in the unraveling of this life that she thought she had. ⁓ And so, you know, whatever it is that she says, of course, like she's going through it, she's gonna be going through it, the remainder of her life. ⁓

Arghavan (55:44)
Yeah,

and they're still, like I said, trying to get some answers for what happened to their daughter. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (55:50)
I mean, clearly

the answer is yes. Like, if you don't say no, I mean, he didn't even lie to her and say no. That's so gross.

Arghavan (55:53)
Yeah, something clearly was done.

But yeah, it's horrifying, because also that's a woman who thought she had a good father. Like she had a good relationship with her father. It sounds like they had generally like a close relationship as a family, but Giselle talks about how something stressful like this doesn't necessarily bring a family together. It's more like a bomb that's exploded in their family.

Alyssa Burgart (56:06)
Yeah.

I mean, you can't recover from this.

Arghavan (56:23)
very hard to cope, especially when she describes how when she left the police station, that first day when they told her what had happened, they told her, don't go home because it's not safe for you at home because there's still a bunch of men out there who we haven't identified and they know where you live. I mean, what a horrifying position to be in. So she went home and got some stuff and then went to stay at her friend's house and...

Alyssa Burgart (56:41)
then know where you live.

Arghavan (56:51)
Of course, they got rid of that house later. Caroline writes about that in her book. But it's so much to experience. And I'm not here to defend or impugn anyone. But I do think if you're Giselle going through everything she was going through and then you add on top of it, also probably he harmed your daughter right in front of you and you didn't know, I can see how that would be hard to accept in that moment. And again, I'm not excusing it. I'm not impugning it.

Alyssa Burgart (57:15)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Our brains are always trying to figure out how to keep us safe.

Arghavan (57:19)
⁓ But I hope that they're able to.

That's right. And so I hope they're able to continue what sounds like increasing closeness in their relationship as mother and daughter. then the other thing I wanted to just mention is that I mean, I am in many ways naive despite being around for as many decades as I have been. And when I remember the horror of hearing about this case when it first became public and thinking, wow, what a unique

evil. And ⁓ yeah, I was clearly wrong to think that. I mean, it wasn't long after that that we found out about that Telegram chat with 70,000 men instructing each other on how to sedate and rape the women in their lives. And there was a man named Philip Young, who had been a politician in the UK who was recently who recently pleaded guilty to 48 counts. ⁓

Alyssa Burgart (57:58)
That would be nice. That would be awesome.

Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (58:22)
of doing harm to his wife that he did for about 13 years from 2010 to 2023 and he shared publicly at least 500 images of her. There's a Swedish man who I read about just this week who is in his 60s and had sold his wife, ⁓ sold sex with his wife to at least 120 men. ⁓ There's also a German guy who last year I think was found guilty of or

is being investigated for similar things. So unfortunately, I think that we're going to hear about more rather than fewer of these cases. And I think technology has helped men who have this particular inclination and this particular way of wanting to harm the women in their lives, has helped them connect with other people.

who have taught them about what medications to use and what dosages to use and what's the timing before these people come because like ⁓ Dominique Pellicoe, he had a specific protocol of what time these people had to come, no cologne, no perfume, no cigarettes. They had to warm their hands either on the radiator or in the sink before they touched her so she wouldn't be sensing cold. It was very detailed how he was instructing these men.

⁓ Anyway, I'm sharing all this because I think it's not just that it's sensational, though it is, but it is important, I think, to recognize that there are these networks that are out there and that ⁓ sometimes even the people who we feel most safe with may not be who we thought they were.

Alyssa Burgart (1:00:00)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (1:00:09)
And there is a way through it. mean, I think one of the reasons Giselle's story took off in the way that it did ⁓ is a lot of, let's just be clear, the vast majority of women have experienced sexual harassment and sexual assault. And so to see someone standing up publicly in ways that not all of us have been able to do, I think is really inspiring. And that case has led to real change in the laws in France around what is rape.

Alyssa Burgart (1:00:39)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (1:00:40)
And there's conversations happening in other countries as well about how do we define rape? Is it just not saying no? Because that's how it's defined in a lot of places and some places it's defined by physical violence. So if there wasn't actual Punching hitting bruise, you know what I mean? If there wasn't that then it's not right

Alyssa Burgart (1:00:59)
And if you're

drugged, you can't fight back. So, yeah.

Arghavan (1:01:02)
Correct, correct.

And by the way, chemical submission is another term that people are using for that. Anyway, I think there's something to be said here for this woman who was betrayed in one of the worst possible ways and continues to do what she can to raise awareness. So like in this interview at one point, she becomes quite emotional and the reporter's like, do you wanna take a break? And she says, no, it's really important for people to know what has happened here.

Alyssa Burgart (1:01:06)
Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (1:01:31)
And it's interesting because I don't think she's a she even says it somewhere herself that she's not like a big feminist But she's a feminist in her own way and I read that to mean that she's not like you and me feminist, know Constantly out there fighting for women's rights, but also fighting in her own way ⁓ to try to prevent this from happening to other women and to try to hold the men accountable and as she said to try to shift the blame to where it belongs which is not on women who

or any victims and survivors who have been harmed in this specific way, but it's on the people who are perpetrating the harm to carry that burden. Anyway, so that's probably enough on that.

Alyssa Burgart (1:02:15)
Well, I'm

thrilled that her book is out. pardon me, I hope it is widely read in many languages. And I think she's done an incredible service. I can only imagine that for her being able to not only speak publicly for herself, but making that choice to allow the trial to be public.

making the decision to go forward with writing a book. These are all actions that she's taken that I hope continue to help her to remain resilient in this incredibly horrifying situation that truly none of us could even imagine. And so I'm really grateful to her for her work and ⁓ whatever kind of feminist she is, she's doing the work, that is for sure.

Arghavan (1:03:04)
Yes.

She is and I forgot to mention she has a new man in her life ⁓ Which I think is amazing. I don't even want a man in my life and she's already found one that she trusts So she's found love again ⁓ You know, I'm delighted to hear that for her I think that's that's incredible resilience to be able to have that vulnerability again after everything that she went

Alyssa Burgart (1:03:37)
Absolutely. Well, I'll tell you what, know, Argevan, after those two heavy topics, I am going to need a prescription for my social media. So let's do take two, call me in the morning. I want to know what you prescribe for me to find joy.

Arghavan (1:03:48)
you

would recommend that folks check out the first in the bloodline trend that's been going on. Mainly I've seen it on Twitter. It's mostly women, except for the men who've co-opted it, but it's mostly women talking about their achievements and the patterns in their family that they've broken. So the first one that I saw was this woman, I'll put a link to it in the show notes, who says she's the first in the bloodline to travel without a husband.

Alyssa Burgart (1:04:11)
Mm.

Arghavan (1:04:20)
but there's so many more. First in the bloodline to be an 11-time national champion. First in the bloodline to slap a man in a crowded place because he molested me. First in my bloodline to climb mountains, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Chapulwadi, Mount Everest Base Camp, Mount Cameroon, and Mount Kenya. ⁓ First in my bloodline to graduate from an Ivy League Harvard and get drafted to play professionally. And there's a photo of this woman playing basketball. ⁓ First in my bloodline to become a medical doctor. First in my bloodline to co-own a hospital.

Alyssa Burgart (1:04:44)
nice.

Arghavan (1:04:50)
⁓ First in the bloodline to move abroad and get a master's instead of a mister ⁓ First in my bloodline to get a divorce Pretty big deal first in my bloodline to be a female cinematographer. Anyway, you get the sense I Love seeing all these accomplishments that women are making and I will say most of the ones that I've seen maybe it's just my timeline is women of color and women from other countries

Alyssa Burgart (1:04:50)
Why?

⁓ yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Arghavan (1:05:19)
who are really breaking through barriers. And so if you want a smile on your face, I recommend checking out that trend. Yeah, how about you? What do you recommend?

Alyssa Burgart (1:05:19)
Mm-hmm.

Excellent, excellent. Well, ⁓

so I've been watching snippets of the Olympics and I've ⁓ been watching some of the events, like again, snippets on social media and across, you know, the algorithm knows that I love a feminist story and that like right now I'm like, I'm down to clown with a little bit of a Olympics material. And so Eileen Gu, who is a incredible, incredible skier, who's competing for ⁓ China this year,

She's a Stanford student. She's majoring in international relations. So she just won two silver medals. She is now, I believe, the most decorated skier ever, women's skier ever. Is that right? Sorry, freestyle. In her event, she is the most decorated. there's a great piece from a ⁓ whatever press thing afterwards, like a junket. ⁓

Arghavan (1:06:08)
Freestyle skier, I think.

Yes.

Alyssa Burgart (1:06:25)
this reporter asks her, these two silver medals that you just won, are these two silvers gained or are these two golds lost? Like basically, do you feel like shit because you only came in second? And she, her, I mean talk about that international relations activity, like she's ready to go folks. ⁓

Arghavan (1:06:41)
What's ridiculous question?

Alyssa Burgart (1:06:50)
She laughs at this person because it is, and she basically tells them like, it's a ridiculous question. I am an incredible skier. Look at how great I've done. I think that I have a lot to be proud of. Also, look at all these amazing other people who've done incredible work and have done, have really performed well. Like what a dumb question that you just asked. Now let's talk about how hard we've worked to get this far. And she just, it's just beautiful. So I'll put a link in the show notes and it's just,

Arghavan (1:07:03)
Yeah.

Alyssa Burgart (1:07:19)
It's fun to watch this 22-year-old passionate athlete who has just done the just incredible skiing to talk to this like middle-aged reporter and be like, seriously, do better, bro.

Arghavan (1:07:37)
Yeah, that was the vibe when I saw it. I she just called him out. She was like, that's a stupid thing to say. It is a stupid thing to say. mean, you're talking about someone, even if she didn't have the most medals for this category ever, whatever, two silver medals at an Olympics is better than that guy's ever going to do, that's for sure. But also, like,

Alyssa Burgart (1:07:49)
Whatever.

Just going

to the Olympics is such a big deal.

Arghavan (1:07:59)
Yes. mean, think it's, as she said, it's an incredible accomplishment just to be there. It's an incredible accomplishment to get any medal. And for someone who's never probably done anything athletic to be like, well, but you didn't get the gold. mean, there's a lot of, you know, we see a lot of toxic narratives around athletics, especially around the times of the Olympics. But anyway, I'm glad she shut that down.

Alyssa Burgart (1:08:29)
She did great.

Well, I think that's it for this week's episode.

Arghavan (1:08:34)
All right, well, I agree. Thank you all for tuning in. If you didn't like what you heard, this has been the Prof G Podcast. If you liked it, don't forget to subscribe to The Present Illness, leave us a review, maybe even a rating, ⁓ and tell all the folks you know.

Alyssa Burgart (1:08:49)
We know that if you made it to this point in the pod, you love us. You love us. So come follow us on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. We're at The Present Illness. And you can stay on top of all of our TPI related news.

Arghavan (1:08:59)
We will be back next week with more headlines, hot takes, and doom scrolling, hopefully wrapped in some laughs.

Alyssa Burgart (1:09:06)
So until then, agitate, hydrate, and take a nap. We'll see you next time on The Present Illness. Production by Arghavan Salles and Alyssa Burgart, editing by Alyssa Burgart, social media by Arghavan Salles, and original music by Joseph Uphoff. Don't take your medical advice from random people on a podcast. This shows for informational purposes. It's meant to be fun, and it's certainly not medical advice. So take your medical questions to a qualified professional.

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Alyssa Burgart, MD, MA

Host
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Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD

Host