Latest / Ridiculous History / Operation LAC: That Time Uncle Sam Sprayed Poison Across St. Louis

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Operation LAC: That Time Uncle Sam Sprayed Poison Across St. Louis · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
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  Speaker 1: our one and only the Man, the Myth, the Legend
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: super producer, Mr Max Williams, who they called me Ben
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and Noel. You and Max and I were having an
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: interesting conversation. I just wanted a gut check before we
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  Speaker 1: rolled today. Where I was asking, I was asking all
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: of us is it St. Louis or St. Louis? And
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: we we all three are people who say St. Louis.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's St. Louis unless you're bugs
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  Speaker 1: Bunny and you want to rhyme it with screwy and
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and and say so long screwy cy and St. Louis. Otherwise,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I think it's sort of more of a not majoritan.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: What do you call it? Like a slang or like
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: calling San Francisco Frisco, which people hate who live there,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: or calling um New Orleans no LA. I think it's
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: a little more socially acceptable from people that live there.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: What are some other examples? Hotlanta? People lay that here. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: people only call Atlanta here. A lot of people will
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  Speaker 1: say Atlanta like U H L, A and and A.
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  Speaker 1: But I think that's just a regional accent. I don't
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  Speaker 1: think anybody's spelling it that way. I'll say A T
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  Speaker 1: L in text form because saying it out loud it's
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  Speaker 1: silly because it's obviously more or the same numbers than
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  Speaker 1: Atlanta A t L. It's the same. But the A
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  Speaker 1: no thank you, no thank you, we're not we're not
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  Speaker 1: the O C. Yeah, I'll say the A if I'm
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  Speaker 1: styling and I need to make sure things rhyme, but
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  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff rhymes with Atlanta, so I usually
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  Speaker 1: get by with that. We're saying this because we we
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  Speaker 1: were curious. I don't know whether any of us have.
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  Speaker 1: I've been to St. Louis. Um. I think we talked
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  Speaker 1: about this in the past. The spirit thing there, right,
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  Speaker 1: the spirit of right arch of some kind. Yeah. So St.
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  Speaker 1: Louis is fascinating because it is divided across two states,
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  Speaker 1: which is neat right. It's uh, it's near the where
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  Speaker 1: the Mississippi River and the Missouri rivers meet, and there's
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  Speaker 1: East St. Louis, which I believe is in Illinois, but
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  Speaker 1: I was on the Missouri side. That's interesting in general
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  Speaker 1: about St. Louis and Missouri is like it's technically you're
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  Speaker 1: getting into like the Midwest, but it's also still kind
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  Speaker 1: of the South. So it's sort of like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: um this limital space, you know, where like North meets
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  Speaker 1: South or or or mid West meets South, and you
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  Speaker 1: can you can see that reflected in the cuisine. You
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  Speaker 1: can see that reflected in the people, and and there's
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  Speaker 1: a really interesting mix sort of like that that one
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  Speaker 1: year between like you know, the eighties and the nineties
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  Speaker 1: where everything still feels a little bit eighties but starts
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  Speaker 1: to feel a little bit nineties. That's kind of what
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  Speaker 1: what St. Louis says to me an interesting comparison. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean I think about that with Cincinnati. So we've
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  Speaker 1: been to a number of times as well, because it's
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  Speaker 1: like right there, like you know, part of it's in Kentucky,
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  Speaker 1: and it's like you get there and it's like, well,
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  Speaker 1: technically I'm in the Midwest now, but it's really still
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  Speaker 1: pretty southern here. Also talking about the Christine and they
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  Speaker 1: have that terrible cuisine where they put Chilian spaghetti. It's
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  Speaker 1: pretty Yeah, I was gonna I bought some of that
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  Speaker 1: one time, and I guess maybe I didn't go to
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  Speaker 1: the right place, but it just didn't didn't do it
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  Speaker 1: all the way for me, tell me tell us which
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  Speaker 1: place we should get that famous Cincinnati chili from. Also,
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  Speaker 1: this reminds me I met someone who had lived in
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  Speaker 1: Cincinnati who referred to their town as the Natty. Uh so,
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  Speaker 1: I don't like that. I don't know if I like
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  Speaker 1: that either. That reminds me of bad beer. But uh
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  Speaker 1: but today's story is not about bad beer or confusing
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  Speaker 1: chili and spaghetti combos. Instead, we are talking about St.
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  Speaker 1: Louis in a way that might be new to many people,
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  Speaker 1: including St. Louis residents. Uh No, this is something we
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  Speaker 1: dive into pretty thoroughly in our upcoming book for Stuff
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  Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. St. Louis is a
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  Speaker 1: lot of things, but once upon a time it was.
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  Speaker 1: This is a true story, a secret testing ground for
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  Speaker 1: some really sketchy stuff. That's right, It's in good company
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  Speaker 1: among I believe Ben Savannah, Georgia. It was another place
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  Speaker 1: that the US military tested, you know, dispersal patterns or
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  Speaker 1: just detested chemicals to determine dispersal patterns um on our
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  Speaker 1: own people and then also, I believe there was another
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  Speaker 1: one where we dumped like like malaria carrying mosquitoes and stuff. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I just literally just it's it's wild. Um. Today, we're
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  Speaker 1: not talking about either of those things. We are talking
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  Speaker 1: about chemical agents, but we're specifically talking about government contractors literally,
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  Speaker 1: you know, contractors hired by the U. S. Government spraying
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  Speaker 1: zinc cadmium sulfide, which is a chemical powder that's mixed
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  Speaker 1: with fluorescent particles um in order to track dispersal patterns
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  Speaker 1: of chemicals. And they're not just spraying it on some
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  Speaker 1: like remote island you know, testing site. They're literally spraying
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  Speaker 1: it over populated areas in St. Louis. Yeah. Now, if
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  Speaker 1: you are not a chemistry enthusiast or a chemist yourself,
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  Speaker 1: you might not be familiar with what Nill just describes
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  Speaker 1: zeke cadmian sulfide. It's odorless, insoluble, inorganic, and it's made
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  Speaker 1: of zinc and cadmium sulfides, respectfully. It was first made
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  Speaker 1: as a paint pigment and it has a bit of
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  Speaker 1: fluorescence to it. This is what was really exciting to
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  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam. They said, this will allow us to track
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  Speaker 1: those dispersal patterns, so we can let this stuff out
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  Speaker 1: and we can kind of map the way the wind
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  Speaker 1: will move it. Uh, similar to how oceanographers use that
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  Speaker 1: that famous rubber duck accident to trace ocean currents. You
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  Speaker 1: remember that, Yeah, that, and also that's that's very true.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe to a lesser degree. There was like a massive
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  Speaker 1: shipping container of legos that capsized about maybe you know,
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  Speaker 1: half a decade ago, and that's been something that's also
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  Speaker 1: been used to kind of track currents by seeing where
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  Speaker 1: certain pieces end up washing up on on beaches. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so this sprain by Uncle Sam was part of a
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  Speaker 1: biological weapons program called Operation Large Area Coverage. So let's
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  Speaker 1: let's talk about how this actually happened, how this all
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  Speaker 1: went down. At first, when you hear that headline, it
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  Speaker 1: sounds crazy. It sounds in no small part illegal, if
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  Speaker 1: not just straight up dangerous. So we have to understand
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  Speaker 1: this is a product of the growing Cold War, and
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  Speaker 1: it starts way back in nineteen one. When people are
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  Speaker 1: worried about foreign adversaries, you know, at that it's like
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  Speaker 1: access powers. Maybe they're worried about foreign adversaries conducting biological
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  Speaker 1: warfare in the United States and against other Allied forces.
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  Speaker 1: So the U S Secretary of War at the time,
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  Speaker 1: Henry Stimpson, ask the National Academy of Sciences for the
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  Speaker 1: National Research Council to investigate all possible phases of biological warfare.
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  Speaker 1: And as a result of this, like the first step
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  Speaker 1: the Research Council takes is to make a committee of
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  Speaker 1: nine Boffin's nine eggheads prominent scientists. This will be called
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  Speaker 1: the War Bureau of Consultants Committee. And they work in
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  Speaker 1: sort of a top secret sphere. They don't officially exist
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  Speaker 1: to the public. I don't know what they tell their
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  Speaker 1: partners they do. I'm a consultant. God only knows. You've
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: gotta be a really good liar to work in that
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  Speaker 1: echelon of government, or have a partner that doesn't ask questions,
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  Speaker 1: or both. But they worked assiduously to assemble a classified
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  Speaker 1: report known as NASO UH and determined that biological warfare
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  Speaker 1: was incredibly likely to take place and urged that defenses
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  Speaker 1: be prepared for this eventuality. I guess it is probably
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  Speaker 1: a word that the Boffins would have thrown around in
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  Speaker 1: this document. It was in fact declassified in so we
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  Speaker 1: can actually do a little reading from it. It goes
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  Speaker 1: as such, the value of biological warfare will be a
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  Speaker 1: debatable question until it has been clearly proven or disproven
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  Speaker 1: by experience. The wide assumption is that any method which
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  Speaker 1: appears to offer advantages to a nation at war will
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  Speaker 1: be vigorously employed by that nation. There is but one
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  Speaker 1: logical course to pursue, namely, to study the possibilities of
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  Speaker 1: such warfare from every angle, make every preparation for reducing
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  Speaker 1: its effectiveness, and thereby reduce the likelihood of its use. Okay, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so that makes sense. They're essentially saying it is inevitable
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  Speaker 1: that someone will try to use this, and our enemies
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  Speaker 1: are doubtlessly working on the same you know, with the
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  Speaker 1: same set of facts we have. So we we have
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  Speaker 1: to prepare. We have to know how this works. Secretary
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  Speaker 1: Stimpson listens to the committee, he goes to President Roosevelt,
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  Speaker 1: and he pitches it to Roosevelt. Roosevelt listens to him,
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  Speaker 1: and so in May of two he says, all right, Stimpson,
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  Speaker 1: you can chase this booning, right, you can pursue this
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  Speaker 1: rabbit hole and see where it leads. I'm gonna make
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  Speaker 1: a new organization for you inside the Federal Security agency.
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  Speaker 1: This organization will conduct the new U S Biological warfare program,
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  Speaker 1: and we're gonna avoid any public concern about what could
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  Speaker 1: happen to the US in the case of an attack
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  Speaker 1: like this. And we're gonna talk a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: this with the United Kingdom in Canada. Are cool allies,
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  Speaker 1: and um, you know, we're we're maybe gonna do a
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  Speaker 1: trade with our scientists amongst these three countries while this
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  Speaker 1: is happening. Again, the American public doesn't know about this.
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  Speaker 1: The American public won't learn about this until the mid nineties. Nineties,
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  Speaker 1: that's how long it was a successful secret. So essentially,
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  Speaker 1: they had a couple of aims. They wanted to learn
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  Speaker 1: everything they could about the militarization or weaponization of pathogenic
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  Speaker 1: micro organisms. Pathogenic just means capable of causing disease, So
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  Speaker 1: all those little micro organisms that can get you sick
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  Speaker 1: one way or another, that's what they're looking at. And
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  Speaker 1: then in turn, they're using that knowledge to figure out
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  Speaker 1: ways to defend against those things. And this is this
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  Speaker 1: is a pretty good idea. This seems like day one stuff.
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  Speaker 1: But they wanted to do it at scale. No, they said, look,
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  Speaker 1: we can if our enemies are attacking. They're not gonna
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  Speaker 1: try to, you know, dose one Johnny Blue Jeans over
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  Speaker 1: in Illinois or something. They're going to try to dose
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  Speaker 1: entire regions. So we need to understand how this biological
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  Speaker 1: warfare works on a large scale. That's right. So the
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  Speaker 1: United States Army Chemical Warfare Service took over this UM,
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  Speaker 1: this operation in terms of being able to bring that
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  Speaker 1: scale that you were describing ben um that is UH
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  Speaker 1: scaling or the research and development program specifically, so in
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  Speaker 1: Fort Dietrich, which is in Frederick, Maryland, they began their work.
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  Speaker 1: So the question becomes at this point, why is St.
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  Speaker 1: Louis a good site for this kind of testing. It's
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  Speaker 1: a very interesting answer in fact, and really just kind
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  Speaker 1: of an unfortunate coincidence for the people of St. Louis.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently it was a very decent stand in for the
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  Speaker 1: former Soviet Union, the kind of terrain and layout that
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  Speaker 1: was very difficult to match in any American city. But St.
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  Speaker 1: Louis had a lot going for it in terms of
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  Speaker 1: the size of the buildings. Buildings in St. Louis for
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  Speaker 1: a metro area, it's kind of unusual. They don't exceed
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  Speaker 1: three stories. The number of industrial installations and infrastructure that
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  Speaker 1: exists both in densely populated areas and in more sparsely
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  Speaker 1: populated areas are very very analogous. Not to mention that
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  Speaker 1: there was that ample pool because the quote from from
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  Speaker 1: some of the documentation of qualified personnel there due to
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  Speaker 1: a university um it being a university town. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: that would be that would be personnel that would help
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  Speaker 1: with doing field tests and pulling data and all that stuff.
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  Speaker 1: So you know, Junior Boffin's right, there would be partially
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  Speaker 1: in the know. They might not know the full extent
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  Speaker 1: of things like Operation L a C. But they would
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  Speaker 1: know something was up and they would probably be happy
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  Speaker 1: to have a job, honestly. So this is where the
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  Speaker 1: famous class is um of US society raises its ugly head.
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  Speaker 1: The government tries to figure out the best place to
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  Speaker 1: test in St. Louis, and they don't go to the
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  Speaker 1: nicest neighborhoods spoiler alert. From the nineteen forties to the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, they focus on impoverished areas. And we're getting
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of this from an excellent book by Lisa
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Martino Taylor, the author of Behind the Fog, How the
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: US Cold War radiological weapons program exposed innocent Americans, but
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: if a spoiler there. Uh. This was a top priority
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: for the government and they were targeting the most vulnerable
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  Speaker 1: people in society. This extended, Like you mentioned all, there
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  Speaker 1: were other cities. This extended to Nashville as well, where
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  Speaker 1: pregnant women and UH folks and hospitals were targeted, as
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  Speaker 1: well as minority populations wards of the state. The Nashville
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  Speaker 1: series is is a little bit different. But let's let's
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: walk through some other programs where you get back to St. Louis.
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  Speaker 1: So in Nashville, they actually injected about eight hundred and
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: twenty poor pregnant women with a mixture during their prenatal
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: care that included radioactive iron. They were not told this
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  Speaker 1: was happening, by the way, and then later there would
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: be blood tests performed to see how much of the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: iron was absorbed by the mother and then how much
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: was absorbed by the baby when the when the child
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  Speaker 1: was born. There were also tests performed in Chicago and
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  Speaker 1: San Francisco. UM. So it's not like this is just
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  Speaker 1: being done in like flyover states. This is kind of
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  Speaker 1: a national effort. You know, no one was really safe
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: in California. You had folks that were creating radiation fields
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  Speaker 1: inside of a building in North Hollywood High School and
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  Speaker 1: that was in the fall of nineteen sixty one. You
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: also had similar stuff happening at the University of California
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: in l a and also at the l A p
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: D headquarters. This testing also extended to Chicago, Berkeley, Rochester,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: um and oak Ridge, Tennessee. And this was all stuff
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: that was involving the use of plutonium to thirty nine. Yeah,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: which you might recognize as not being a cool thing
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: to be around as a human being. That's what it's
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: maybe most famous for. But yeah, totally yeah, yeah, it's
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: double plus. I'm good for you, as or well would say. So.
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  Speaker 1: Back to St. Louis. Operation l a C. That's the
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  Speaker 1: street name for Large Area Coverage. It was the biggest
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  Speaker 1: test ever by the Chemical Corps and it covered the
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  Speaker 1: United States from the Rockies all the way out to
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  Speaker 1: the Atlantic and then from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
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  Speaker 1: They were trying to prove the feasibility of covering large areas,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: get it, covering large areas of a country with biological
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  Speaker 1: warfare agents. And for a long time, a lot of
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  Speaker 1: folks in academia and in the military totally believed this
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  Speaker 1: was possible. But Operation L A C was the first
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  Speaker 1: real proof. And it's what they did sound so weird
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  Speaker 1: when you when you hear it out loud. The Army
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: went to low income areas of St. Louis, particularly a
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: high rise a housing est state and its schools, and
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  Speaker 1: they would set up these motorized blowers to blow the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: zinc cadmium sulfide stuff out, and they even like went mobile.
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  Speaker 1: One of my favorite visions of this is some guy,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I guess they drew the short straw. Some guy literally
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  Speaker 1: drove around a poor part of town in his station
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  Speaker 1: wagon and he had his little chemical blower just running
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: out the back of his station wagon and people, I
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: guess people thought, man, you gotta fix your car, because,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: like now, every time I see a car with a
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: lot of smoke coming out of the pipe on on
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the interstate, just some little part of me, you guys,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: some little part of me is thinking he is he
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: burning oil? Or is that on purpose? So at this
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: point you have local officials um being told that the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: government is testing some sort of smoke screen um that
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: would be a benefit to the blow St. Louis that
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: would potentially shield them from being um, you know, sniped
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: by Russian sky attacks. Right. But then in Knights Any
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: four there's a pivot and the government says the tests
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: are actually part of a biological weapons program. And St.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Louis was chosen for the reasons that we outlined earlier,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: because of the similarity in terrain and uh, city planning roughly,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you know, the best they could do on American soil
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: to Russian cities that the US might one day attack.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, the material that was being
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: spray it wasn't in finding spokes for me at all.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: It was this toxic zinc acadmium soul fide stuff. Yeah,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: not not not not great. Yeah, it was are bad folks. Uh.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: The the army did this multiple times. Uh. They did
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it in the fifties. They did it again in a
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: decade later. The local officials got their own smoke screen
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: of a story which was about creating a smoke screen.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: So it totally gave them plausible deniability to say, you
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: know what we're doing. Really, it's it's patriotic for you
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: to approve this, and it kind of puts you the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: implication was you are at the forefront of technology we're
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: going to use to defend against Soviet attacks, which is,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: you know, not true. So the we have to say
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: in defense of the folks in the US military and
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and the and the associated halls of science at the time,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: they were all under the impression that zinc cadmium sulfide
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: would be like firing a blank from a firearm, that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: it would not actually harm people, you know what I mean.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Like if you for cat owners out there, one way
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: people sometimes try to modify a cat's behavior is by
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: spraying it with a little water bottle, right, and they
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: had You're dispersing water, but it's not gonna hurt the cat.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: It's just unpleasant, irritating, Yeah, exactly, but it's not gonna
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not the same as spraying them with like,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: you know, sulfuric acids. Say, it might look the same,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: might sprits the same, but it does not act the same.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And that's basically the case here. Yeah. So, once the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: testing on the good people of St. Louis is exposed
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: to Congress in nine, the public demands a health study,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: which is totally reasonable. Uh, And this is where things
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: get sticky because when you think about it, the same
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: overall institution, the US government that is doing the testing
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: is the same institution that did the spraying back in
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the day. So it should be no surprise that when
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: the National Research Council a few years later said, hey,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: this chemical is dangerous at large, you know, large levels,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: high level, but residents weren't exposed to levels high enough
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: to be harmful. It's no surprised that people didn't believe them,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: and they thought it was a cover up rather than
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: a decent investigation. And the committee that came to this
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: conclusion even they said there wasn't a ton of research
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and they had to rely on what little data they
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: knew from animal testing, which is not the same thing
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: as testing on humans. But what what else did they
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: find here? Like, what did they say about high doses
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of this stuff? It's kind of scary. It's not a
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: good thing, that's for sure. Um. It is noted in
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: fact that high doses of cadmium that can happen in
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: long periods of exposure can actually cause serious problems internally
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to your bones, your kidneys, and can even lead to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: things like lung cancer. So this committee actually recommend end
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of the Army, you know, do follow up studies of
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the individual members of the community to determine how much
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: or if any or or you know, whether or not
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: zinc had been inhaled or zinc cadmium sulfide. Rather, so,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the committee actually recommended the Army do more studies, you know,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: go a little deeper to figure out whether um inhaling
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: zinc cadmium sulfide causes it to break down into the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: toxic components of cadmium um which actually are able to
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: be absorbed right into the blood and can produce severely
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: toxic effects in your internal organs um, including but not
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: limited to your lungs, as is often the case with
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: these kinds of things. Not really quite sure whether they
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: did that thing or not. Yeah, it's it sounds pretty
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: great at follow up, you know what I mean. They
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: like to put things to bed as quickly as possib right,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: It's that clear if they actually did the follow up
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: study or just said they were going to do the
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: follow up study. We know again that these sprayers were
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: put in multiple locations. We also know that one of
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the locations was, like we mentioned, a housing complex. It's
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: name was the pruitt Ego or Prudeigo Housing Complex. Ten
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: thousand people lived there. Of those ten thousand people, seventy
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: percent were children under the age of twelve, and they were,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: you know, a ground zero for this. We started learning
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: more about this, we being the US public in two
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: thousand and twelve, when that sociology professor we mentioned earlier,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Lisa Martino Taylor, conducted a deep dive into what actually happened.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: And she's based in St. Louis Community College, Merrimax. She's
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: familiar with the area. And Martino Taylor started saying, hey,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the Army might have also mixed radioactive particles with the
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: zinc cabinet in sulfide. She said there was no direct proof,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: but what she did find was troubling enough that U.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: S Senators from Missouri wrote to the Army Secretary of
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: the time, John McHugh in and demanded answers through a
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Foyer request, a Freedom of Information Act request, and she
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: got some results. By the way, and the Army had
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: described this area at the time as quote a densely
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: populated slum district as that word that s word loaded,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: you know, And here's the thing, Martina Taylor was not
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: said that she wasn't aware at the time of any
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: lawsuits filed by anyone that was affected by these tests. Uh.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: There was actually one that was filed a month after
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the statement, but up to that point she was not
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: aware and to our knowledge, there were not any lawsuits filed.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: She also said that the government hadn't paid for any
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: medical procedures or or or care or reparations of any kind. Uh,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: nor was she aware of them even even issuing an apology,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: which is another thing the government is not very good
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: at doing. Yeah, and you know, she continued to try
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to reach out to the army herself and was essentially stonewalled,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: another thing the army is quite good at doing. Yeah,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: and you know exactly think about the brutal calculus that
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the army engaged in here. The thing about a disadvantaged
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: population is one there there's less likely to be public blowback.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe a poor choice of words for this episode, but
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: you get the gist to These are people who are
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: overwhelmingly not likely to have the means to pursue a
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: case in court in terms of time or money, so
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: it makes sense that they would target the most vulnerable.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Martino Taylor herself became involved due to a personal connection.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: She had a colleague who grew up in the targeted area,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: and this colleague contracted cancer later in life, leading Martino
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Taylor to wonder if the testing had something to do
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: with that cancer in her adulthood. And the same day,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: the very same day, another coworker told Martino Taylor that
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: she also had contracted cancer and she also lived in
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that test area. So Bartino Taylor started researching this as
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: were her thesis at the University of Missouri, and she yeah,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: and it was a good thesis as they go. She
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: believes that the study was linked to the Manhattan Atomic
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Bomb project and that a group of scientists from the project,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: we're developing radiological weapons. In congressional study comes out that
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: confirms radiological testing, which is, uh, you know, it's like
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: biological warfare testing, but it's just with radiation and radioactive substances.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: This congressional study confirmed that the testing occurred in Tennessee
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and parts of the American West during the Cold War,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: which leads her to believe it's reasonable to conclude, Uh,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: there may have been a radiological component to the St.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Louis study, which means that even if zinc cadmium sulfide
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: is not itself as harmful in the amounts that people
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: encountered it, if there was radiological stuff mixed up in
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that crazy, crazy aerosault smoothie, then that would have been
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous. Would that be nice if you just get
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the airslized stabilities and just you know, squirt it right
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: into your mouth like whipped cream. Yeah, I've been I
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: think we're onto something. Maybe not, you know, leave out
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the cadmium, perhaps, but the technology is not there yet. Good.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it is hard to ariostolize a
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: thick slurrious mixture. Is slurrious the word? I'm gonna go
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: with it, this American english Man. Just get enough people
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to say it as well, and then boom, tend to abulation.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna start a change dot org petition to make
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: slurrious a word. Um So, mccaskell actually, uh, the Senator
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: agreed that this was all kind of a little bit
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: sus uh said this quote. Given the nature of these experiments,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: it's not surprising that Missouri's citizens still have questions and
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: concerns about what exactly occurred and if there may have
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: been any negative health effects, um she said in a
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: statement from her office, UM are our hero scientist. Doctoral
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: fellow friend Martino Taylor said that again that these follow
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: up health studies should be performed, but it needs to
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: involved input from the community, from the people whose lives
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: are actually put at risk, you know, without their knowledge
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: by the government, and that they should their stakeholders in this.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: They need to have a say, um and be you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: part of the decision making process in terms of like
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: the tests and all of that stuff. And uh yeah,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: she went on to say, their voices have not been heard.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Seems pretty clear that that's the case, wouldn't you say, Ben, Yeah,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: I think it's very clear that their voices haven't been heard.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: We need to have direct input from people who live
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: in those areas. Her book, by the way, it was
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: published just a few years ago in seventeen in August.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: It was a follow up to that two thousand and
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: twelve dissertation. It's legit, you know, I've looked into it
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: as well, Like obviously no one's making up stories here.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Her report triggered and Army investigate and the Army in
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: a stunning plot twist, Max, I don't know what a
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: sarcastic sound. Cue is but sorry, that was smart. Yeah,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: you're welcome, thanks, absolutely ridiculous. There it is, there, it
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: is okay. In a stunning plot wist. The Army investigation
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: found no evidence that the testing was a threat, and
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: this is an ongoing event. When you think about it,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: history is never as far away nor as distant as
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: people often assume. There are potential victims who are alive today.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: For example, from a Business Insider article that are old
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: pal Gabe found by Jim Salter. There are people like
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: dor Spates. She was a child when her father suddenly
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: died in n and Spates in her family alone, and
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: she's watched four siblings die of cancer. She herself is
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: a cervical cancer survivor. And because she was born in
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: that housing development I mentioned earlier at the top floor,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: of course, she's wondering if the Army spewing hundreds and
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: hundreds of pounds of this sulfite into the air had
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: an effect on her family. Four of her eleven siblings
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: signed from cancer. By the way, that's not a normal number.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: That's not a normal ratio. No, it's not. And this
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: also comes from the article that Ben referenced earlier from
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the AP writer Jim Salter, The Army sprays St. Louis
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: with toxic aerosol during a just revealed nineteen fifties tests
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: came out in two thousands twelve. So this really is,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: you know, relatively new information that is not terribly terribly surprising.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: And again, you know, ben Um, I did my session
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: for the Stuff they Don't Want You to Know audiobook
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: the other day, and a couple of the chapters that
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I read were from the section on chemical weapons and
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: UM testing and UM. It is very eye opening and
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: very disturbing. It happens more than you would think throughout history. Yes, agreed, agreed, unfortunately,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and you know, you can make all sorts of arguments
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: about a greater good, you know, that's those are the
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: arguments that are made in the halls of power pretty
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: often with stuff like this, the idea that we're going
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: to do our best not to hurt innocent people and privately,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: never said in public, rarely said in public, but privately,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: the idea is, if a few people do get hurt,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: that's still better than millions dying in a biological warfare attack.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: It's it's true, I mean, okay, it's it's you know,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: it's people in this level of government, and then with
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: this amount of power, they certainly do have to make
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: some difficult decisions. I'm not saying I'm not justifying the
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: decisions that they actually make, but um, I am saying
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: that it's obviously, you know, a bit of a devil's
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: bargain there that you have to make oftentimes when you're
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: in that situation. But you know, sometimes I think they
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: go a little bit overboard. Let's just say, with testing
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: and looking for scenarios that may or may not actually
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: play out. And you know, to what degree are they
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: allowing kind of like paranoia and and the anxiety of
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: a perceived threat cause them to actually harm their own citizens?
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know what. What do you think? Man? This
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: is something that you dig into quite a lot, like
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: could you put yourself in the position of of a
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: person like that? And then is there another is there
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: an alternative to this? Are these easy solutions that are
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: the most the lowest hanging fruit, that require like a
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: certain degree of callousness to be able to say, like,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: you know what, we've already got a Weston ground right
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: here in St. Louis. Let's just do that we need
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: to save some money and not worry about like building
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: some kind of like simulation. Yeah, well, here's the question
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: I think that should be posed to those folks. If
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: this stuff is so safe, why aren't you testing it
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: over your part of town? You know what I mean?
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: That's the question for the scientists and the general's uh,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: and the secretaries various and subjury. It's kind of like
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the question for a lot of very powerful business tycoons.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: If indeed your factory isn't polluting anything, why don't you
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: live down the river? Right? Why don't you live in
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: that part of town? So I think the in a
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: very real way, their choice of disadvantaged populations, however they
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: rationalized it gives lie to the claims about safety. They
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: knew what was up, and this is this is just
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: one instance, like you said, Noel, of multiple other times
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the US has tested chemical weaponry in one form or
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: another on civilians. We talked about some other times. You
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: can learn about even more times stuff like this occurred
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: in our upcoming book for a different show, uh stuff
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, publishing in October. You
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: can pre order now, But in the meantime we promise
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: We're gonna get to something a little bit less depressing
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: in a future episode. We have some of the most
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: exciting episodes I think we've ever done, coming very very soon.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Like like, I think we've mentioned that we're jazz about
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: our new research buddies, Jeff and Zach. They have been
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: churning out some incredible stories, digging deep and finding us
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: some really really fascinating stuff. And I think all of
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: you ridiculous storians out there are going to love them
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: as well. Um, and I think we're also gonna you
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: guys are gonna meet Jeff and Zach personally very soon. Yes, yes,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: that is a ridiculous history. Geary and t uh So.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you to Jeff and Zach. Thank you, of course
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: to our main man on the audio ones and twos,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. Thanks to Alex Williams who composed the soundtrack.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Casey Pegram, and folks, we do still talk
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: with Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quister. Saw some
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: questions about that on Facebook. Don't worry, we'll be returning soon.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: It's just a little weird for us now in our
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: nomadic phase, right as we moved from office to office. Yeah,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: I may have mentioned as well that I recently moved
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the house. Um, I bought a house recently. It's very
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: excited about, and I have a studio in my basement.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: It's still a little bit crazy and chaotic, though, so
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: I kind of feel like I'm squatting and someone else's
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: creepy basement. But soon it will be full of rainbow
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: colored lights and art and and music and and all
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: of the all of those good things. But until then,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I kind of feel like a bit of a cave troll.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: You are the opposite of a cave troll, my friend.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: We do have a question for everybody, if you, if
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: you have a story like this in your pastor and
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: your family, um, whatever your neck of the global woods
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: might be, would you mind letting us know. We would
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: love to hear it. You can find us on Facebook
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: as ridiculous historians. You can also find us on social media,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: not just as a show, but as individuals. Mr Noel Brown,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I hear you're blowing up those instagrams. I don't know
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: about blowing up. I'm that's more of a slow burn, really,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: But you can't find me slowly burning on Instagram where
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: I am at? How now Noel Brown, how about you, sir, Yeah,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: that's true. You can find me doing an Operation Large
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Internet Area coverage over on Instagram where at Ben Bolling
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: b w L I N you can get a preview
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: for all the secret projects I'm working on. There are
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: more and more these these past few weeks. By going
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: to Twitter where I'm at Ben Bowling h s w
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: uh coming from my tear rble jokes and spoilers and
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: stay for what La Musk calls the best part of Twitter,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. Yes, you can find me on Twitter
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: at at a t L underscore Max Williams, where I'll
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: be trolling bands Operation what is? What is? What was
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that acronym LAK Internet Internet Large Internet Area Coverage. Yes, yeah,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: I'll be trolling Operation LAK. So yeah, find me on
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: there at a t L underscore Max Williams. We'll see
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: you next time, folks. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 39:39
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