Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #107: Radium Girls: A Pattern of Corruption & Abuse

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Episode #107: Radium Girls: A Pattern of Corruption & Abuse · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, what the U.S.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Radium Corporation did was they hired women, sometimes as young as 11 years old, to work with this radium-infused paint.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: So they would paint the dials, for instance, with this radium-infused paint.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the problem.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: The paint was, the painting was very precise.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: So very little dials, right?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we required the women to lick the paintbrush in between paint strokes in order to create a really fine tip on the paintbrush.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what we now would look back and think, what were you guys thinking?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Were you crazy?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because licking the paint was actually considered a perk of the job at the time.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So they're literally, picture that, they're literally all these women, young children, licking radium-infused paint off paint brushes all day long as they worked.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so why was it considered a perk?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Medical doctors were promoting radium therapy at the time.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, everybody.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another Beyond Labels podcast with yours truly, Farmer Joel Salatin, and our favorite researcher, Dr.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Several weeks ago, we hosted here at Polyface our annual Wellness Summit.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to change the name in the future to the Beyond Labels Summit to keep it all kind of consistent with the book, this podcast, and that and that summit.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely grown in strength and popularity.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we thank those of you who came to it for coming.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we hope to see a lot of you others next year when we have our, I think it'll be our fifth or something.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's hard to believe that it would be that many.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, um in that uh that theme for this year, the kind of theme was kind of where science got it wrong and what we can do to correct it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and we looked at a lot of things.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And Cena gave kind of the you know the keynote presentation, going down through uh the history of numerous things and showing how um science uh got it wrong from what's from what's true.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um, like so many times, you know, you get to talking and then you suddenly realize ooh, the clock is ticking and I don't have time, and and people don't have bladders enough to handle as long as I can talk.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so so uh she had she had to cut a couple of these out.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And one that she cut out that she really wants to share today is about the radium girls going back to 1920s, the radium girls.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so um bring us up, bring us up some history here, Zina.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Joel.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, Radium Girls has something that I found out about just within the last year.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I was watching a documentary with my husband, with Donnie, and it was about Radium Girls, and we looked at each other and we're like, oh my goodness, how did we not know about this?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is a prime example of what you and I talk about with um corruption, with government and industry being involved and the public being kept in the dark, and it ends up in a huge health issue, health issues for people.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a fascinating story.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So hold on as we um we just go through the highlights of this of this um very interesting historical perspective of another example of how science got it wrong and how we were duped.
• 3:34
  unknown: Okay.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the radium girl.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So radium, as you probably know, is a radioactive element.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was discovered in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie, and the scientific and medical community fell hard for it.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was so unique because it constantly gave off energy without losing any weight.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that did not conform to the known laws of physics at the time.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it was actually dubbed by the Chicago Daily Tribune at the time to have, quote, new and useful powers, right?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: So the scientific community fell hard for it, and the media picked it up as this um element with new and power, new and useful powers.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this sounds familiar already, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Scientific community and media working hand in hand.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and and new new and useful powers, uh, new and useful powers without any um um uh without any expected consequences.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, um yeah, unintended consequences, yeah.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Unintended consequences, yeah.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's this new thing that and and it and it doesn't obey the laws of physics.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So let's all start consuming it.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean that's pretty much what happened, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So so let me get you up to speed.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So in 1914, the United States began producing radium-infused paint.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the US Radium Corporation actually received um money, these are through military contracts to paint things like watches, control panels, and other instruments with radium because it would glow in the dark, right?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this could be really useful, like a wristwatch.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, say you're in the trenches in during war and you need to time an attack, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's dark in the trenches.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can look at the dial and it's it's glowing.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the same thing with like on you know, planes and stuff like that.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can see the dials glow.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: So useful concept.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, what the US Radium Corporation did was they hired women, sometimes as young as 11 years old, to work with this radium-infused paint.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So they would paint the dials, for instance, with this radium-infused paint.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the problem the paint was the painting was very precise.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So very little dials, right?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it required the women to lick the paintbrush in between paint strokes in order to create a really fine tip on the paintbrush.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what we now would look back and think, what were you guys thinking?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Were you crazy?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because licking the paint was actually considered a perk of the job at the time.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So they're literally, picture that, they're literally all these women, young children licking radium-infused paint off paint brushes all day long as they worked.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, why was it considered a perk?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Medical doctors were promoting radium therapy at the time.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Radium was considered a cure-all, a quote, elixir of youth.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: They thought it would eradicate all diseases known to man.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because the scientists showed that it could actually kill cancer cells, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's radiation.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So they thought that it would, if it could cure cancer, then surely it was going to heal lesser diseases like heart disease or diabetes.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So what happened?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Radium was actually added to water.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it was marketed in around 1904 as quote, liquid sunshine.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Radium spas popped up where you could literally go pay to take baths in the radium.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: There was radium tea times.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was advertised as, quote, the most curative mineral water in California.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Radium was added to chocolate, to snacks, to makeup, to skincare products, toothpaste.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: There were even radium suppositories.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the girls who worked at those radium paint-infused plants, before they went out, like had a night on the town dancing, right?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because these are young girls, they would paint their teeth with radium because they would glow in the dark at these, you know, when they're out dancing.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: There was even a radium medical doctor who deemed himself a radium expert, and he declared in a lecture in 1931 that these radium-infused beverages were the quote cornerstone of his health regimen.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: He said he regularly drank a radium highball to maintain optimal health.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the girls and the women who worked at the radium-infused paint facilities, they were assured that it was safe by the company.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: They were assured that by the medical doctors and the media that it was safe.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget the project itself was funded by money from the government.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, at the same time, when they're being told it's safe and the public's being told it's safe, scientists who were handling radium followed protective uh safety precautions, you know, wore protective gear.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but nobody else was warned.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then in the 1920s, the women who were working at these radium-based paint companies, they began to have serious health issues.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Teeth began falling out.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: They had severe weakness, they had pains in their jaws.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them developed holes in their jaws.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: One of the women, her jaw actually fell off.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: There were bones in the spine that were crumbling in some of them, and they had tumors.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: These were women in their early 20s.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them had young children, they were married, and they were dying, and their deaths were actually covered up.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: They were disguised as syphilis in some cases.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the the companies, the company who they worked for, they said, oh, this is just syphilis.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And some reports are saying that they think that the re one of the reasons why the company did that was because nobody wants to admit they have syphilis, right?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: No one wants to talk about that.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it was kind of a way to shut them up, like to get them to stop talking about all their different symptoms that they're having.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: So this went on for a while.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they tried to get the labor department involved.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was alleged that the employers of the United States Radium Corporation, they apparently refused to accept any responsibility for the illnesses, even though the women's doctors and dentists were saying no, this is probably from the radium.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, they said no, this is from a sexually transmitted disease.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: They tried to discredit the women, silence them.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and actually, allegedly in March of 1924, that company did conduct a covert internal investigation led by a Harvard physician.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: The investigation concluded that the radium was likely causing the illnesses, and that physician recommended safety precautions.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that was in 1924.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the president of the company rejected the findings.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: The report was allegedly buried, and instead, the company submitted a fraudulent report to the labor department with false results that would basically exonerate them as not being responsible for the women's illness.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um one reason why they thought this also remained hush-hush was because it's alleged that many of the leading radium scientists actually had investments in the radium companies.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they were not inclined to disclose these dangerous side effects, even though the scientists knew since 1914 that radium could cause anemia and skin burns and such.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that some of these um some of these findings were actually buried.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what happened was several of the women who got sick, they sued companies in two states.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: The states were in Illinois and in New Jersey.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: The girls who sued in Illinois became known as the Radium Girls or Ottawa's Living Dead, right?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they were nicknamed by the media and the public.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, allegedly, the company again was not um, so we say, very ethical.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: They tried to delay the trial and hoped that the women would die before the trial would begin.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: They were successful.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: The lawsuit in New Jersey was filed by five women in 1925, and the hearing didn't take place until 1928.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they the women eventually won a settlement.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was only$10,000 plus the payment of their doctor's bills.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the uh and many of them died, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Many of the women just died before before any of um any of these uh lawsuits came about, so they didn't even get justice.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now this tells you how um how d um poisoned their bodies were with this radium.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: The bodies of the workers, when they were buried, they had to be buried in lead-lined coffins because the radioactivity in their bones was so high.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, when they were alive, you could measure the radioactivity from their breath.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So every time they breathe, it came out of their bodies.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's estimated now that that radium was responsible for killing 112 of these dial painters.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they're saying that for many of them, they're in the coffins now, even though this happened in the 1920s, they're still in the coffins and they think their bones are still radiating this glowing substance.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, here's another thing that sounds very similar to today.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: This lawsuit in the settlement, it didn't actually stop radium from being funded by the government and promoted by the media and the medical doctors, right?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Some people actually um pounced on the women, right, saying that they're like making it up, right?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it sounds very familiar.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Some reports allege that what really turned the tide and woke people up again about radium and got them to stop, you know, putting it in chocolates and everything.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until the death of a wealthy steelmobile named um Evan Byers.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: He was actually an industrialist who was advised by his medical doctor to drink a radium beverage every day because he had a nagging arm industry.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: After two years of doing this, at the age of 51, he um he developed necrosis in both draws, anemia, and a brain abscess.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all symptoms of radium poisoning.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he did die in March of 1931.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: When that happened, the government's the government response was actually swift.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: The Federal Trade Commission ramped up the inquiry into radium.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Health officials vowed they were going to crack down on the cellars of radium preparation.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what was once heralded as this elixir of youth actually became known as bottled death.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, on an interesting side note, in Ottawa, there were 16 different sites where the women would paint the instruments using this radium-infused paint.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: When that company closed, get this.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this is also how it relates to um Joel, you and I talking about the food supply.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Little did you know, talking about radium girls, I was gonna bring in the food supply somehow, right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So when two of the buildings were closed, one uh sorry, when the buildings were closed, two of the buildings were used to store meat.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: They they stored it in these buildings that had radium poisoning all over, right?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And now, so two were used to store meat, one would later become a farmer's co-op.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: It became a co-op where you go and buy your fresh food from the farmer, right?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then eventually it was classified by the government as a super fund site, which means it requires long-term hazardous waste removal.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I Joel, are you familiar with these super fund sites?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah, they've been around for a long, long time.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, the the the the probably the most famous one was the dioxin, uh the dioxin sites up in uh New York, up upstate New York.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: So isn't that nice to know?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: It brings me great comfort to know that a super fun site had been carrying food for for us to eat.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm sure though, I'm sure it didn't get contaminated at all.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, all these people know what they're doing.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all the radiation was gone by that time.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm sure there was probably enough radiation in that building to turn a Geiger counter upside down.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and so if anyone's interested, these super fun sites.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you go on to the EPA's website, you can actually search to see if there's a super fun site where you live, right?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: So they they have them by state and by county, and they tell you where it is.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can I type mine in just to make sure I don't have any right near me, but there are some in Georgia.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, according to the EPA, there are quote thousands of contaminated sites that exist nationally due to hazardous waste being dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: These sites include manufacturing facilities, processing plants, landfills, and mining sites.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we do have thousands of them still in existence today.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: But what a crazy story, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: About these radium girls, like, and so many similarities to what we still have today, where oh, it's this newfound treatment for disease, for instance, and we're not gonna test this at all.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need any long-term testing, but you know, there, just go ahead and take it and take it in excess, right?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Take a bunch of it.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, take um, yeah, take take boosters, take boosters, yeah.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Take all this, um, you know, and and it's gonna cure all.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like you don't need to worry about changing your diet or your lifestyle whatsoever.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna fix everything for you.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then the companies take no responsibility, right?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just like we see here.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's cover up, there's manipulation, there's government funding involved.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some things never change, Joel.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what was going through my mind as you were telling the story.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, the the thing about history is that um the thing about history is we don't learn from history.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh and people are the same.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in every culture, you know, there's there's the greed, the selfishness, there's the there's the the go-getters, and there's the the ones that uh don't want to do anything, the lazies.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're we're um for all of our language differences and our you know geopolitical differences, the human spirit, the human, you know, um uh mentality is um is very, very similar uh from you know from place to place.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, this is this is just it's just an amazing story of how how um when you have the collusion of government, science, and media it's like everybody's um everybody's um awareness signals you know, uh red flags, um you know, just just they're not there, you know, they're not there.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um and yeah, and we see that we see that today in so many things, and uh this is just uh great um a great story.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, and what what's so what's so um especially frustrating is is is the the stonewalling that the company did.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's the same thing the tobacco companies did, it's the same thing now that uh Pfizer and Merck are doing over the the uh the the the um the results of their uh jabs.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: As my dad used to say, it's the same boat crossing the same river.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know they certainly they certainly don't employ the precautionary principle.
• 21:48
  unknown: Right.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just thrown to the wayside.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's um you know, and and you and I can understand somebody who was uh coming from a place where I came, where I was deathly sick, right.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was almost willing to try anything.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's interesting about that is that I wouldn't try pharmaceuticals, right?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I was willing to try all these other things, like you know, the herbals, the emotional freedom technique with the tapping, like all things that kind of sound woo-woo.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was willing to try all those things, but I wasn't willing to try the pharmaceuticals.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: So a little different, but I can understand the concept of people are dying, we're trying to help them to not be sick anymore.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: We found this, you know, this what seems like this element that defies um physics principles.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's help these people.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I can understand to a certain extent like where the scientists would be coming from, uh, because at heart you do want to help people.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think that's actually going to work, then you you want to share it right with people instead of keeping it hidden.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: But there does come a point where you're like, well, we need testing, right?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: We need to make sure that what we are recommending is safe and effective, long-term testing.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I will say another interesting side note is that we still use radium today for radioisotope therapy.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a different isotope of radium, but we still do use it today to treat like uh I think like prostate cancer that is spread to the bones, for instance.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's other radioisotopes that we do use, but like iodine.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's I think it's iodine 131, um, and and and different radioisotopes that we still use today, and that's radiation therapy.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we still do use it.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we don't, you know, add it to the water and chocolates and you know, add it to our tea like they did back then, but they are still using concentrated um doses of it as treatment, um, which that give that even gives me pause because we know we we've known since at least the early 1900s of the different side effects of the radiation treatment.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yet this is another example of a mainstream treatment that they think is very effective, which if you we can have a podcast on that, if you look in the literature, it's not very effective.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it stems back part from this corruption, right?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it stems back from this tale.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it might it it might not be effective, but it's certainly nice and expensive.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: It it certainly lines the pockets very well, right?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, and and so so the you know, the um the upshot of a story like this, and of course there are many others, and and as you look back and see the you know the cycles that they just they just turn over and over and over is to realize that that the mob I'll just say the mob, not not the majority, but I'll say the mob is usually wrong.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um the mob is usually wrong.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and it you know, and and and you know, as a conservative, you know, um I I I have no trouble you know tread into politics, but but you know, the the mob, the mob that wants um the mob that wants control of things is wrong, whether they're liberal or conservative.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, January 6th mob was wrong.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh the the mob that wants all these um you know uh pubescent blockers and transgender stuff, that that that's that's a new mob in our you know in our culture.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and that's wrong.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: The censorship mob is wrong.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh basically you you you you you can take any um uh any mob-oriented thing, and it's probably gonna be wrong.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: That that if we want to precau if we want a precautionary uh um precautionary political algorithm, that probably is it.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: That that that what that when you see everybody piling on and the mob and the bandwagon, it's probably headed the wrong direction.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: And certain certainly certainly we saw that you know in COVID.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I saw it, I mean, the day, the day in Virginia when um when the ABC stores, Costco and Walmart were open, but all the farmers markets were were prohibited from opening.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: For me, that that was that was enough for me.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, everybody's got a different uh whatever uh sensitivity level, you know.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: What does it take?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: What does it take for you, you know, and for me, um that was enough.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: That was enough for me to know, you know, I didn't know those science, I didn't know all that was going on, but for me, that was enough to know this this is um this is heading the wrong direction.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's why it's so fascinating because as you dive deeper and deeper um into the history of even just our nation, right?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: You do see this repeated pattern.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's to the point, sadly, I know we're about out of time, so I'll wrap up here and throw it back to you, Joel.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: But um, in a way, it's kind of sad that my husband and I are at a point where when we learn something about a new corruption like the Radiant Girls, it's not surprising to me anymore.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's almost a non-emotional level because I'm it's such the norm now.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm desensitized to it, where we just looked at each other and instead of being um like if this was the first story someone had ever told me about the corruption and stuff, I would be like, what?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: How in the world did this happen?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what why did they do something?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, um, I'd be up in arms about it, right?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: When we were watching it, listening to it together, we looked at each other and we're like, oh, that's fascinating.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, one and then my husband said that would be a great example for you to give at the summit, right?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Almost non-emotional because it's such the norm now, right?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's, you know, for all the new people that might be hearing about some of this corruption for the first time, uh, we're here for you, like, right?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: We support you.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: There, we haven't all gone crazy, like we're here, and we also think that it's just ridiculous what's happening.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: But for all the other people like us, who it's just the norm, um, I think it's good to continue to educate ourselves on these topics, to become aware of them so we don't get duped.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And also maybe to remind ourselves to let's not be laxadaisical about it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah like keep this in in mind as they're doing more and more censorship, for instance.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: How long are we gonna be able to find these stories online?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've started to print everything off, not just put it on my computer, because as we know, they can access your computer if they want to.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm printing these things off and stuff because how at some point are these gonna be gone if they're gonna erase the history.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so we need to be vigilant about it so that we can teach the next generation and pass them so that we're not duped, so that we can try to preserve the freedom for ourselves, but also for our children and grandchildren.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's well said, Cena.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And my my parting thought uh on the whole thing is I I don't want people to think we've not used the word conspiracy here.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I think if there's one thing that you and I really uh um, you know, the the the thing that we that we really understand is the good intentions, the good intentions of people.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: We we don't think, in other words, I I don't think some some nefarious uh Illuminati or or trilateral commission uh got into a a conspiratorial um you know Indiana Jones uh uh dungeon somewhere with you know with um um torches around the walls and a ceremony saying, ha ha, let's let's make radium girls, you know.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um no nobody did that, okay?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a conspiracy.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um it it is just it it is just you know it it is the the uh whatever it is the weakness, it's it's the weakness of our uh our humanity, if you will.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's a weakness of our humanity that we uh have a psyche that that wants uh convenience, that wants quick fixes, that wants um um easy, easy outs.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and um you know, even our body, our body wants easy sugar, uh easy energy, right?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and so so um so you know, we have this, we have this this this whatever stamp uh on us that this problem.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I want everybody to understand C and I are not suggesting that there was some nefarious conspiracy here.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it it would it in fact it would be a little easier, it'd be a little easier for us if it were a nefarious conspiracy.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: But but um but what we're what we're suggesting is well-intentioned, sincere-minded people, um, like you and I, uh, you know, the easy thing is for us to just to just you know join a uh join a fad, uh uh join a thing and and without without looking at it uh um critically, without looking at it critically.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because because critical thinking and intentional intentional buying, intentional thinking, critical thinking takes a lot of energy.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: And our our our our bodies, our emotions, our mental state, we won't we want to conserve energy.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to expend energy, right?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so um so it's almost for me, it's almost um scarier, it's almost scarier to present this as well intentions gone wrong than a conspiracy.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and so you know just take that take that as a as a you know a thoughtful um a thoughtful analysis of something that obviously went way off the rails, was was completely wrong, uh hurt a lot of people, um but it but it was the the people promoting it now once once the cover-up happened, then that gets to be, you know, that that moves toward conspiracy, but but initially it was not.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was very much um well-intentioned stuff that went off the rails.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll just add, since you brought that up, um the story itself of the Radium Girls is a well-known story.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the National Archives, which is the government's you know website.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's their database of records, and they have the records on there.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: So they have the evidence of this that's on the National Archives itself.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to that website, type in Radio Radium Girls, and all the information pops up.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this story itself is not a conspiracy theory.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually um uh been confirmed and documented by our own US government, including, you know, the delay tactics by the company and whatnot.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we can all relate to this as Joel is saying, because this is what happens today, right?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's some new thing.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: We jump on the bandwagon, right?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: The companies make a lot of money.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: They usually are getting funding from, or they're often getting funding from the government.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: The company has shareholders oftentimes that they have to, you know, make happy.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so if something goes awry, they're gonna do what they need to do to protect the shareholders, protect the bottom line.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's a pattern that we see throughout the history of our country, uh, you know, and others, but I'm talking about our country at this point.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not a conspiracy, that's the pattern of what happens.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it makes you wonder, Cena, if in if in a hundred years uh there will be a documentary on the TikTok girls.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, listen, listen, listen, the the um the relation between teen suicide, depression, bulimia, yes, all these things, uh it's girls, it's not boys.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I mean, primarily, I'm I'm being I don't want to be completely stereotypical, but but it's you do you know how many uh um 12 to 25 year olds today their their objective in life is to become a TikTok sensation and make a million?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're uh um you know we we are just we are just destroying the work ethic, we're destroying um meaningfulness, self-worth.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, self-worth, oh we're getting on a rabbit hole here, but self-worth listen, self-worth comes from being doing a successful, meaningful task, okay?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: Doing successful, meaningful tasks.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and boy, if there is something that is that is uh vapid uh uh and meaningless and and um whatever uh uh foolish to to relate your whole self-worth to, it's it's a viral TikTok.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I can be more outrageous than anybody else.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's it's it's nuts.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh so this whole this whole thing makes me wonder if in a hundred years we're gonna have a documentary on the TikTok girls.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think we'd better quit there uh before we go down another rabbit hole.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: But Cena, it uh thanks for bringing us up on Aradium Girls.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's a fascinating historical point in our in our culture, and we need to recognize that history does repeat itself.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so if these kind of lessons were taught in in civics classes in in schools, so that young people grew up, grew up understanding that the experts get it wrong, that the mob gets it wrong, that generally, you know, when the government says, okay, now we all should do this, probably we shouldn't.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, when that comes i if that were taught, we'd be a in a different country.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, thank you all for joining us on another episode of Beyond Labels, and we'll look forward to seeing you next week.