Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Caroline Fraser (2025) - Lead Poisoning, Serial Killers and Public Health

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Caroline Fraser (2025) - Lead Poisoning, Serial Killers and Public Health · The Joe Rogan Recap

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  Welcome to the Joe Rogan Re Tap. We're doing a special deep dive
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  today into some really compelling material and
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  sometimes honestly pretty unsettling stuff.
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  Definitely unsettling. Our mission here is to unpack a
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  really unconventional theory, and frankly, it's quite
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  disturbing. It's about these hidden links
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  between environmental pollution and violent crime.
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  Specifically serial killers, which is just wow.
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  Exactly. You shared excerpts with us from
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  JRE episode hashtag 2360 with Caroline Frazier.
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  She's the author of Murderland. And this deep dive, it's
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  probably going to challenge some of your assumptions about human
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  behavior, maybe even the forces shaping our world.
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  It certainly challenges conventional thinking.
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  OK, so let's dive right in Caroline Frazier's book
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  Murderland. It's not just theory, is it?
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  It tackles this question she's apparently been thinking about
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  since she was a kid. Right, growing up in the Pacific
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  Northwest in the 70s. And the question was why?
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  Why were there so many serial killers emerging from that
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  specific region back then? Her research LED her down this
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  well, this rabbit hole, to a premise that sounds wild at
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  first, a connection between lead pollution and heightened
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  aggression, violence. And she goes so far as to link
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  it to the rise of serial killers themselves.
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  It's a really bold claim. It is, but her work lays out
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  some compelling evidence, doesn't it?
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  Absolutely. And what's really interesting is
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  how her own life story kind of intersected with this discovery.
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  Oh yeah, How so? Well, she talks about living in
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  Santa Fe, NM Apparently it had a pretty high homicide rate
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  itself. And she was thinking about
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  moving back to the Pacific Northwest, looking at real
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  estate, you know, and she saw this listing on the Shawn Island
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  in Puget Sound, undeveloped property.
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  And the listing had this little note.
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  Arsenic remediation may be necessary.
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  Just like that, a small detail. Exactly.
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  But it sparked something her curiosity.
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  It LED her to start researching this notorious lead and copper
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  smelter in Tacoma. The Asarco smelter.
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  American Smelting and Refining Company.
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  That's the one. It had been operating since,
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  what, the late 1880s, 1890s, just pumping out pollution for
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  decades. And this is where it gets really
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  chilling, connecting back to the serial killer angle.
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  Yeah. Frazier realized that some
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  really notorious killers like Ted Bundy.
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  And Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer.
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  Both of them grew up right there in Tacoma during the smelter's
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  peak years of operation. Wow.
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  But she didn't just stop it like a geographical coincidence, she
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  actually found GIS maps. Geographic information systems,
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  right? Yeah.
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  These maps let her look up specific addresses, including
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  Ted Bundys actual childhood home.
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  No way. Yes, and she could see the
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  documented levels of lead and arsenic pollution right there in
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  their yards. So it wasn't just a theory, it
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  was measurable contamination where they grew up.
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  Literal, quantifiable contamination.
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  It really makes you think about how much our environment shapes
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  us, doesn't it? It absolutely does.
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  And connecting this to the bigger picture, I mean, serial
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  killers are the extreme, right, the most extreme, horrifying end
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  of the spectrum, Yeah. But most of the research on lead
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  exposure looks at broader societal impacts.
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  And these long term studies, they consistently show this
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  strong link even with really small amounts of lead exposure.
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  To things like learning problems.
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  Problems. ADHD.
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  Juvenile delinquency, adult crime rates too, and even
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  measurable drops in IQ across populations.
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  So it's not just about extreme violence, it's this general drag
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  on cognitive function and impulse control.
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  Exactly. It affects society much more
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  widely. That is staggering, especially
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  when you think how common lead exposure must have been.
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  So OK, smelters were one big source.
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  A major localized source, yes. But Frazier's work also looks at
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  something even more widespread, right Leaded gasoline.
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  Oh, absolutely. The book calls it a horrific
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  experiment conducted on, well, generations of people.
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  An experiment they knew the risks of.
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  Apparently so. Companies like Standard Oil,
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  DuPont, they knew the dangers back in the 1920s and 30s.
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  Really. That early.
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  Yeah, medical doctors actually warned them, said this would
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  expose people to unprecedented levels of lead, dangerous
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  levels. But they chose it anyway over
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  other options. Over alternatives like ethanol
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  and the reason ethanol couldn't be patented, it wouldn't be as
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  profitable. Wow, so the book frames this as
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  a a massive moral failure A. Profound moral failure, yeah,
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  even mortaring on evil is how it's described, considering they
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  knew the potential harm. That's quite an accusation, but
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  based on the evidence presented. It paints a pretty damning
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  picture of corporate decision making.
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  And it didn't stop there. The book talks about efforts to,
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  you know, whitewash their reputations afterwards.
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  Like cleaning up? Their image exactly.
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  A bit like Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Prize, right?
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  Inventor of dynamite trying to fix his Merchant of Death image.
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  Interesting parallel. And the book brings up Thomas
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  Midgley. He's almost this tragic figure
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  in it all. Who was he?
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  He invented both the leaded gas formula and CS ES, the
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  chlorofluorocarbons. The ones that blew a hole in the
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  ozone layer? Seriously.
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  The very same. And despite the, you know,
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  catastrophic consequences later on, he got the highest medal
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  from the American Chemistry Association.
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  Unbelievable. And get this, he died in this
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  bizarre accident involving A pulley system he invented for
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  himself because he had polio, and some people speculate the
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  polio itself might have been linked to lead exposure from his
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  own work. It's just layers of irony there.
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  That's incredible, a man celebrated for inventions that
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  ended up poisoning people and the planet.
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  It really shows how progress can go wrong when profits the main
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  driver. It's a chilling example for
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  sure. So, OK, we have this picture of
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  widespread lead exposure, but was the Pacific Northwest really
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  disproportionately affected in terms of serial killers?
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  The book argues yes, finding an extraordinary number
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  concentrated there. And beyond just the serial
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  killers, the overall violent crime rate.
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  In Tacoma specifically, it just skyrocketed in the mid 70s.
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  Which matched a national trend, right?
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  Crime was rising everywhere in the 70s and 80s.
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  It did align with the national trend, and of course there are
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  other theories for that national rise.
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  Like the baby boomers, coming of age, economic uncertainty,
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  Vietnam. Exactly.
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  All those factors are discussed, but the science around
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  environmental toxins, especially lead, offers this really
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  compelling additional layer and often overlooked factor.
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  Right, it doesn't have to be the only cause, but a significant
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  contributing 1. Precisely.
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  And the research points not just to lead but also things like
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  cadmium, zinc, manganese, all part of this particular
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  pollution from industry. And these heavy metals, they can
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  get into the brain. Yeah, they can cross the blood
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  brain barrier relatively easily, and that's linked to all sorts
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  of neurological problems, health issues, heart problems,
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  dementia, Alzheimer's, even ALS. Wow.
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  And crucially, the statistical analysis shows this really
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  strong correlation. You overlay the charts and the
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  rise in airborne LED in the mid 70s lines up incredibly closely
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  with the rise in violent crime. It's not just a coma, either.
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  No, the book uses El Paso, TX is another example.
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  ASARCO had a huge smelter there too.
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  And Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, he grew up near that
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  smelter. And El Paso also saw a big spike
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  in violent crime in the 70s. So you see these patterns
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  repeating in places with simile industrial pollution.
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  Exactly. It suggests it wasn't just a
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  Pacific Northwest anomaly. They mentioned Rick Nevins work
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  too, the Lucifer curves. Yes, those graphs are really
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  striking. About 45 of them showing violent
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  crime, even things like teen pregnancies.
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  Mirroring lead exposure levels. Almost perfectly mirroring the
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  rise and then the fall of lead exposure over decades.
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  It's almost uncanny how neat the correlation looks.
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  But the data is the data. It's hard to argue with that
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  visual evidence. The book also touches on why
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  we're so fascinated by true crime, doesn't it?
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  Yeah, suggesting it might partly stem from, you know, women's
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  collective experiences with fear and male violence, which is a
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  whole other layer. Frazier herself had a personal
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  connection there, too, didn't she?
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  She did grew up just miles from where Bundy started his
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  abductions back when serial killer wasn't even really a
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  common term. And she points out something
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  chilling about Bundy. That he was a suspect in an
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  abduction of an 8 year old girl back in 1961 when he was only
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  14. Yeah, that adds another
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  disturbing dimension. It really does.
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  So backing up a bit, what exactly were these smelters
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  doing that caused so much pollution?
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  Well basically they were melting rocks or from mines to get the
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  valuable metals out. Lead, copper, silver, gold.
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  OK, standard smelting, right? But the process releases huge
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  amounts of particulate pollution, dust, fumes, heavy
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  metals, all going up to smoke sacks and out into the air and
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  surrounding land. And the book is some specific
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  examples. Oh yeah, horrific ones like a
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  fire in 1973 at the Bunker Hill smelter in Kellogg, ID.
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  What happened? The fire destroyed its filters,
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  the things meant to capture the pollution.
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  So for 18 months, a year and a half, heavy metals just rained
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  down on the area, including onto an elementary school right
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  across the street. Oh my God, the kids.
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  They tested the kids. Their blood lead levels average
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  50 micrograms per deciliter 50. 50 and the safe level now is
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  what like 3.5? Exactly.
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  The CDC recommends action at 3.5 now it just shows how much our
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  understanding has changed and how high those exposures were.
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  That's horrifying. What did the company do?
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  We'll get this. The company Gulf and Western
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  owned it. Then they apparently calculated
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  the worth of those kids lives. They calculated, yeah.
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  At about $1,000,000 each and decided it was more profitable
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  to keep operating without the filters and just risk lawsuits
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  than to, you know, fix the problem immediately and protect
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  the children. I have no words for that, just
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  calculating human lives against profit.
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  It's really stark example of corporate disregard laid bare.
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  And the consequences for Ozarko eventually.
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  Huge. They eventually declared
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  bankruptcy largely because of these environmental liabilities,
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  and they face this massive, unprecedented EPA settlement.
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  How much $2 billion for cleaning up 20 Superfund sites.
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  These are the most contaminated places in the country.
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  And that Idaho site was one of them.
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  Yes, and Lake Kurda Lane nearby, which is so polluted at the
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  bottom they can barely touch it without making things worse by
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  stirring it all up again. Just impossible clean up jobs
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  almost. Pretty much.
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  And there's that interesting little tidbit about Frank
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  Herbert, the author of Dune. He was from Tacoma.
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  Yeah, and apparently his disgust with that as Arco Smelter
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  directly inspired the themes of ecological destruction in Dune.
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  Wow, art imitating life, or rather, pollution.
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  Something like that. So how do you even clean up
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  something like Tacoma? It's a monumental task.
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  Yeah. They literally had to dig up and
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  replace tons and tons of contaminated soil in people's
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  yards. Just physically remove it, yeah.
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  But even then, some of the worst stuff like this highly
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  contaminated material called the Arsenic Kitchen from Everett.
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  What did they do with that They. Basically put it in a giant
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  super heavy duty plastic lined bag like a toxic waste garbage
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  bag, buried it and capped it with soil.
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  Seriously just buried it. Yep, and then condos were built
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  on top of the old smelter site condos.
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  On top of that. Condos with apparently just a
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  small historical display about the smelter near the public
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  bathroom. And they built a park called
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  Dune Park, funnily enough. On the slag land.
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  On the slag heap, yeah, lined with plastic to stop leakage.
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  It just shows the scale right? Billions spent, and often the
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  best you can do is contain it, not truly remove it.
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  It really drives home the long term legacy of this stuff.
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  OK. So we've looked at the past, the
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  smelters, the leaded gas. This devastating historical
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  pollution. But the deep dive makes it clear
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  this isn't just history. Frazier's work really pushes us
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  to ask, what are the modern unseen poisons?
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  Are we creating the next Murderland?
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  It's a crucial question. Frazier herself had a scare,
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  didn't she? Finding arsenic in her system?
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  Yeah, but. That was organic arsenic from
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  eating too many sardines, apparently, which is different.
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  Right, Organic arsenic occurs naturally in seafood.
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  It accumulates the smelters they were pumping out in organic
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  arsenic. The really toxic kind used in
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  rat poison insecticides. Exactly.
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  And that stuff contaminated huge areas of Washington way beyond
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  just the immediate smelter sites.
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  It persists in the environment. So what are the parallels today?
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  Plastics. Plastics are a huge one the book
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  touches on. Microplastics are literally
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  everywhere now. They found them in human brains.
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  In our brains. How much?
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  An amount equivalent to about a spoon is what the research
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  suggests, and they build up in the food chain, especially meat.
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  That's deeply concerning, and the solutions aren't always
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  better. Sometimes, not like paper straws
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  often have these forever chemical coatings that might be
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  worse than the plastic they replace.
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  Even glass bottom caps can leach micro plastics.
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  So we try to fix one problem and accidentally create another.
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  It's a recurring theme, unfortunately.
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  Good intentions, unforeseen consequences.
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  And it makes you question other things we take for granted, like
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  natural gas stoves. Is that safe?
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  What about clean coal? After reading about leaded gas,
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  those terms definitely sound more suspicious.
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  Don't they like potentially dangerous marketing speak?
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  Definitely. The book also goes into fluoride
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  and drinking water, which is always controversial.
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  Highly controversial, Fraser note studies correlating high
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  fluoride levels with lower Iqs, yet it's still widely added for
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  dental health. Even though we know there's no
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  safe level of lead and historically people had fewer
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  cavities before sugar was everywhere.
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  Exactly. It raises questions about the
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  priorities and the science used in public health policy.
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  And underlying all this is the worry about regulatory bodies
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  like the EPA right being defunded.
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  Yeah, that's a major concern raised.
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  If the agency is responsible for oversight and cleanup are
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  weakened, what happens to existing Superfund sites?
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  What new threats are emerging unchecked?
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  It reminds me of that zone Rouge in France, the WWI battlefield.
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  Still too toxic for people. A chilling precedent for long
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  term man made contamination zones.
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  So wrapping this up, this deep dive into murder land, it really
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  exposes a, well, a dark side of industrial history, doesn't it?
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  It really does. These conscious corporate
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  choices prioritizing profit, leading to massive environmental
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  damage with these profound, often hidden impacts on human
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  health and behavior. But as you mentioned, with the
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  Lucifer curves, there is that glimmer of hope in the story
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  too. Absolutely.
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  Rick Nevins work showing that when lead was removed from
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  gasoline, there was a dramatic, undeniable fall in violent crime
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  rates and fewer active serial killers.
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  It shows collective action can work.
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  Addressing these environmental factors can make a real
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  difference. Undeniable progress was made.
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  It proves it's possible. So what's the main take away for
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  you listening to this? Maybe it's just that unsettling
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  idea that these invisible environmental factors might be
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  shaping us, shaping society way more than we realize.
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  Or maybe the bigger question is, what are we exposing ourselves
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  to now? What unforeseen consequences are
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  we creating? What murder land might we be
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  building for the future? It's definitely something to
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  think about. Thank you for joining us on this
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  deep dive.