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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.

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Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

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Speaker 2: A little more than a year ago, we did an

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Speaker 2: episode on eponymous diseases, which I kind of thought might

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Speaker 2: only be interesting to me, but we got some emails

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Speaker 2: from folks in the audience who seem to really like it,

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Speaker 2: so we are doing another one.

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Speaker 1: Last time, we talked.

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Speaker 2: About three diseases that were all named for the place

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Speaker 2: where a notable outbreak happened, which led to their being

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Speaker 2: identified and named, and today's really similar. These are named

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Speaker 2: after places again, but this time these are all diseases

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Speaker 2: that you get after being bitten by something specifically mosquitoes

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Speaker 2: and tics, and since both of those feed on blood,

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Speaker 2: this also feels just a little bit like a precursor

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Speaker 2: to October episodes. The diseases that we are going to

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Speaker 2: talk about our West Nile virus, lime disease, and Rocky

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Speaker 2: Mountain spotted fever. I was originally going to put them

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Speaker 2: in chronological order, but the Rocky Mountain spotted fever story

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Speaker 2: turned out to have a couple of twists in it.

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Speaker 2: That made it feel like putting anything after that would

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Speaker 2: seem a little anti climactic. Also, just to note, there

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Speaker 2: is various animal experimentation in this episode.

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Speaker 1: So first we have West Nile virus. West Nile virus

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Speaker 1: is part of a large family of viruses, many of

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Speaker 1: which cause disease in humans, including dengey fever, zica, and

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Speaker 1: Japanese encephalitis, and the story of how it was discovered

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Speaker 1: and named is pretty straightforward, although it happened during research

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Speaker 1: into a different disease, that being yellow fever. This research

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Speaker 1: was conducted through the Yellow Fever Institute, which was established

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Speaker 1: by the Rockefeller Foundation's International Division in nineteen thirty six.

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Speaker 1: By the late nineteen thirties, researchers had isolated the virus

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Speaker 1: that causes yellow fever, and they had determined that there

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Speaker 1: were multiple strains of it circulating in parts of Africa

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Speaker 1: and South America, and they also knew that people who

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Speaker 1: recovered from yellow fever were typically immune to it afterward,

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Speaker 1: and in a large region of Central and western Africa,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people had this post infection immunity. The

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Speaker 1: Institute was conducting research along the edges of this endemic zone,

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Speaker 1: where people were less likely to already have immunity, so

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Speaker 1: they could try to isolate and study different strains of

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Speaker 1: the yellow fever virus. In December of nineteen thirty seven,

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Speaker 1: a physician from the institute named A. W. Burke saw

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Speaker 1: a woman from the West Nile district of Northern Uganda.

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Speaker 1: She had a fever of one hundred point six degrees

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Speaker 1: fahrenheit that's about thirty eight point one degree celsius, but

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Speaker 1: she said she wasn't having any other symptoms. Her blood

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Speaker 1: was drawn and three months later she returned to have

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Speaker 1: another blood draw and at this follow up she said

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Speaker 1: she hadn't had any other signs of illness around the

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Speaker 1: time of her prior visit. Researchers isolated a different virus

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Speaker 1: from the blood they drew at her first visit, and

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Speaker 1: she had antibodies to that virus at her follow up

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Speaker 1: three months later. Yeah, so they were looking for yellow fever,

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Speaker 1: but this was something else. The researchers did a bunch

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Speaker 1: of experiments with this virus that involved inoculating mice with it.

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Speaker 1: They ultimately found that it was lethal one hundred percent

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Speaker 1: of the time when a mouse's brain was exposed to it,

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Speaker 1: but it was a lot less lethal in exposure through

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Speaker 1: the skin. They also did research on other animals. Rhesei's

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Speaker 1: monkeys developed encephalitis when they were exposed through their brains

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Speaker 1: or their noses, but they had milder illness when they

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Speaker 1: were given a subcutaneous inoculation. Other monkeys had only a

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Speaker 1: mild illness no matter how they were exposed to the virus,

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Speaker 1: and rabbits didn't develop any signs of illness at all.

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Speaker 1: This was similar to research that was being conducted with

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Speaker 1: the various strains of yellow fever virus that the institute

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Speaker 1: had isolated from other patients. The team published their research

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Speaker 1: on this newly isolated virus in the American Journal of

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Speaker 1: Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in nineteen forty. In their paper,

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Speaker 1: they named it the West Nile virus, after the district

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Speaker 1: of Uganda where they encountered this patient.

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Speaker 2: So at this point, it really doesn't seem like this

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Speaker 2: virus was causing a lot of illness in humans. If

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Speaker 2: it was, it wasn't causing illnesses that really stood out.

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Speaker 2: It's not completely clear whether it made that first patient

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Speaker 2: feel sick. The paper's authors speculated that she might have

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Speaker 2: said she wasn't having any symptoms because she did didn't

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Speaker 2: want to be hospitalized, which in my opinion is pretty reasonable,

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Speaker 2: and they also stated that quote she was not altogether cooperative,

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Speaker 2: and it is possible that she withheld pertinent facts. It

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Speaker 2: is reasonable to have some skepticism about this characterization of her,

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Speaker 2: but it is also possible that she might have had

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Speaker 2: symptoms that she chose not to tell the doctors about.

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Speaker 1: More than a decade passed between the identification of the

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Speaker 1: virus and the next time it was isolated in patients.

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Speaker 1: This involved three apparently healthy children in Egypt, and it

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Speaker 1: wasn't until the nineteen fifties and sixties that there were

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Speaker 1: large enough outbreaks for researchers to really study the virus

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Speaker 1: in human patients rather than in lab animals. Most of

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Speaker 1: these outbreaks were in places around the Mediterranean. Symptoms included fever, headache,

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Speaker 1: muscle pain, rashes, abdominal pain, and vomiting. Smaller numbers of

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Speaker 1: patients had swollen lymph nodes, chest pain, and diarrhea.

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Speaker 2: Research in the Upper Nile Delta in nineteen fifty one

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Speaker 2: started looking for signs of West Nile in non human

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Speaker 2: animals in the wild, as well as evidence of whether

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Speaker 2: it could be transmitted by insects. The virus was found

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Speaker 2: to be capable of infecting a wide range of animals,

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Speaker 2: and it seemed to be particularly fatal in horses and

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Speaker 2: other equines. The virus was first identified in birds in

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifty three, and today birds are considered to be

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Speaker 2: the virus's primary host. The research also found that West

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Speaker 2: Nile could be isolated from mosquitoes, but not from some

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Speaker 2: other insects, and today we know that it is transmitted

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Speaker 2: mostly through mosquito bites.

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Speaker 1: Until the late nineteen fifties, cases of West Nile were

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Speaker 1: usually relatively mild and self limiting. In some places, the

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Speaker 1: majority of children had evidence of being infected at some point,

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Speaker 1: and it seemed almost like a routine childhood illness. Research

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Speaker 1: that first identified the virus had suggested that it could

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Speaker 1: cause encephalitis, and it's related to other viruses that do,

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Speaker 1: but that wasn't really happening in human patients.

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Speaker 2: That started to change in nineteen fifty seven, when an

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Speaker 2: outbreak in Israel affected several elderly people, and many of

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Speaker 2: them developed severe neurological symptoms. After this outbreak, it became

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Speaker 2: more common for people with West Nile virus to develop encephalitis, meningitis,

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Speaker 2: or some other kind of serious neurological issue, and to

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Speaker 2: die from the disease.

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Speaker 1: There was another shift in nineteen ninety six with an

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Speaker 1: outbreak in Bucharest, Romania, which was the first major outbreak

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Speaker 1: in a primarily urban area. Most people in Bucharest did

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Speaker 1: not have air conditioning, so they kept the windows open,

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Speaker 1: and many of those windows did not have screens. Another

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Speaker 1: factor was that many people were living in apartment buildings

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Speaker 1: that had flooded basements, and of course that created a

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Speaker 1: breeding ground for mosquitoes. A lot of patients in this

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Speaker 1: outbreak had some kind of involvement of their central nervous system.

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Speaker 1: This was also the first outbreak in which one particular mosquito,

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Speaker 1: the common house mosquito or qlex pipions, became recognized as

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Speaker 1: a vector.

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Speaker 2: After this outbreak in Romania, outbreaks of West Nile virus

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Speaker 2: disease started happening in more places far away from Equatorial

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Speaker 2: Africa and the Mediterranean, with a greater proportion of the

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Speaker 2: patients having more severe symptoms. For example, an outbreak in

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Speaker 2: Russia in nineteen ninety nine had one hundred and eighty

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Speaker 2: three confirmed cases, with more than half of those people

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Speaker 2: developing acute meningo encephalitis, and there were forty deaths. More

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Speaker 2: than seventy five percent of the deaths were in people

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Speaker 2: sixty years old and older.

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Speaker 1: That same year, West Nile virus was reported in North

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Speaker 1: America for the first time. This was in New York City,

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Speaker 1: and it was initially suspected to be Saint Louis encephalitis

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Speaker 1: that is also related to West Nile virus. The strain

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Speaker 1: of West Nile virus that was isolated in this outbreak

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Speaker 1: was similar to one that was circulating in and around

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Speaker 1: Israel at the time. It is not definitively known exactly

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Speaker 1: how the virus arrived in New York, but two possibilities

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Speaker 1: are mosquitoes that found their way onto international flights and

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Speaker 1: illegally imported birds. It was not spread by sick humans.

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Speaker 1: While humans can get West Nile virus, it doesn't reach

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Speaker 1: a high enough level in our blood to infect a mosquito,

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Speaker 1: and it doesn't spread from person to person except very

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Speaker 1: rarely through things like blood transfusion and organ donation.

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Speaker 2: Within three years of its arrival in New York, West

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Speaker 2: now virus had been detected in forty four states and

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Speaker 2: the district of Columbia, and it has since spread to

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Speaker 2: Mexico and Central and South America. A subtype of West

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Speaker 2: Nole virus called Kungen virus was first isolated in Australia

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Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty, but it was not classified as a

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Speaker 2: strain of West Nile until a lot later.

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Speaker 1: Today, most people who contract West Nile virus have minor

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Speaker 1: symptoms or even no symptoms at all, but about one

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Speaker 1: percent of patients develop West Nile virus neuroinvasive disease, which

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Speaker 1: is a severe and serious illness that can involve meningitis, encephalitis,

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Speaker 1: or acute flaccid paralysis, and it can be deadly. There

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Speaker 1: is no treatment for the virus itself, only for some

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Speaker 1: of the symptoms and issues that it can cause.

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Speaker 2: There are some veterinary vaccines for West Nile virus, including

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Speaker 2: one for horses, but there's not a human vaccine yet.

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Speaker 2: Part of that has to do with the virus itself

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Speaker 2: and how it mutates, but it's also connected to the

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Speaker 2: fact that West Nile virus outbreaks in humans can be

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Speaker 2: kind of random in their size and severity and location. Ideally,

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Speaker 2: if someone was doing efficacy testing for a vaccine, they

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Speaker 2: would be able to administer it to a population before

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Speaker 2: an outbreak actually started, so they could see whether that

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Speaker 2: population was protected. But the unpredictability and seasonality of major

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Speaker 2: outbreaks makes that hard to do with this specific illness,

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Speaker 2: so prevention is largely based on avoiding mosquito bites and

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Speaker 2: on mosquito control and health authorities taking screening steps for

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Speaker 2: blood and organ donation when there is an outbreak. We

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Speaker 2: have more fun disease talk coming up, but first we're

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Speaker 2: going to pause for a sponsor break. In May of

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Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, research was published in the journal Historical Biology

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Speaker 2: that described fossilized tics preserved in Dominican amber that had

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Speaker 2: spirrokeat like cells in their digestive tracks. The size and

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Speaker 2: shape of these cells strongly resembled bacteria from today's Brellia species.

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Speaker 2: Burrellia borgdorferi is one of the bacteria that caused lime disease, and,

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Speaker 2: according to research published in the journal Nature Ecology and

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Speaker 2: Evolution in twenty seventeen, its family tree is at least

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Speaker 2: sixty thousand years old. Research on the fifty three hundred

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Speaker 2: year old mummy known as Utsy the Iceman who has

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Speaker 2: made many appearances on our show and on installments of Unearthed,

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Speaker 2: also found DNA evidence of Borellia bacteria in his bone marrow.

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Speaker 1: Written descriptions of symptoms that are associated with lime disease

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Speaker 1: started in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty three, German physician Alfred Buchwald described a chronic

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Speaker 1: skin condition typically affecting the hands and feet, that sounds

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Speaker 1: like something that can happen in a late stage untreated

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Speaker 1: lime disease. Almost forty years later, Swedish dermatologist Arvidovzelius described

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Speaker 1: a rash that frequently occurs in lime disease, which can

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Speaker 1: be shaped like a bullseye. In the nineteen twenties, two

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Speaker 1: doctors in France, Ce Garrin and A Bougeadou described a

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Speaker 1: patient who developed a rash in neurological symptoms after a

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Speaker 1: tick bite, which is sometimes described as the first clinical

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Speaker 1: description of lime disease, but the patient also had other

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Speaker 1: symptoms that were not consistent with lime.

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Speaker 2: But the name lime disease today also known as lime boreliosis,

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Speaker 2: is way newer than any of that It is only

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Speaker 2: fifty years old. In nineteen seventy five, Polly Murray and

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Speaker 2: Judith Mensch, who lived in Lime, Connecticut, each contacted the

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Speaker 2: State Department of Health in Hartford, Connecticut. Polly Murray's husband

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Speaker 2: and two of her children were having recurring issues with

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Speaker 2: raw rush's headaches, muscle pain, and swollen joints. Judith Minch's

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Speaker 2: daughter had been diagnosed with osteomyelitis after experiencing severe knee swelling,

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Speaker 2: and then that diagnosis was changed to rheumatoid arthritis after

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Speaker 2: it didn't resolve with antibiotics. In addition to what was

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Speaker 2: going on in both of these women's families, they knew

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Speaker 2: about and had heard about other people, including other children

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Speaker 2: in their neighborhoods, who had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis

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Speaker 2: or with a similar condition. That was enough that it

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Speaker 2: seemed unusual and concerning, and both women wanted answers. Murray

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Speaker 2: and Minsch were not the only people to notice a

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Speaker 2: cluster of this kind of disease. There were also reports

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Speaker 2: from Cape Cod in the nineteen sixties, and researchers on

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Speaker 2: Long Island in New York were studying what was locally

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Speaker 2: called Montak knee. But Murray and Mensch's advocacy led to

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Speaker 2: a surveillance study in the communities of Old Lime, Lime

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Speaker 2: and East Hadda, Connecticut, which ultimately led to the disease

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Speaker 2: being identified and named. These three communities had a combined

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Speaker 2: population of about twelve thousand people, and researchers found thirty

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Speaker 2: nine children and twelve adults who had symptoms that were

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Speaker 2: similar to rheumatoid arthritis. But that was an unusually large

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Speaker 2: percentage of the population to have RA, especially when it

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Speaker 2: came to juvenile RA. But beyond that, the cases were

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Speaker 2: not spread out evenly among these three communities. They were

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Speaker 2: very heavily concentrated in specific areas. A lot of them

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Speaker 2: were in people who lived in wooded areas along the

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Speaker 2: same few roads. On some roads, as many as ten

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Speaker 2: percent of the children were affected. The state Department of

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Speaker 2: Public Health and Yale University worked together to try to

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Speaker 2: work out what was going on, including running blood work

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Speaker 2: and getting family medical histories from the people who were affected.

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Speaker 2: It seemed like most people's symptoms started in the late

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Speaker 2: summer or early fall. About a quarter of the patients

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Speaker 2: remembered having a rash that was shaped like a bullseye.

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Speaker 2: There rheumatoid arthritis like symptoms also seemed similar to a

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Speaker 2: collection of symptoms that were being reported in Europe. Soon,

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Speaker 2: a hypothesis emerged that this might be an illness that

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Speaker 2: followed some kind of bite. In August of nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 2: Connecticut Commissioner of Public Health Douglas S. Lloyd issued a

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Speaker 2: circular to the States Directors of Health that set, in

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Speaker 2: part quote the seasonal and geographic distribution of cases and

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Speaker 2: the association with a skin lesion suggests that a virus

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Speaker 2: carried by a biting insect may be responsible for this disease.

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Speaker 2: By that point, researchers were calling the disease lime arthritis,

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Speaker 2: and they had pointed to the bulls eye rash, which

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Speaker 2: is known as eurhythmia migrants, or EM, as a leading symptom.

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Speaker 2: Over the next few years, other cases were documented elsewhere

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Speaker 2: in the United States. Most of these cases were still

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Speaker 2: clustered together in the northeastern US, in Wisconsin and in California, Oregon.

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Speaker 2: By nineteen seventy eight, the search for the diseases vector

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Speaker 2: was focused not on insects but on arachnids, specifically ticks,

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Speaker 2: among other things. Researchers in Connecticut started noticing that this

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Speaker 2: disease seemed to be more prevalent in areas that had

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Speaker 2: more tics.

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Speaker 1: Swiss American medical entomologist Wilhelm Bergdorfer, known as Willie, worked

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Speaker 1: out of Rocky Mountain Laboratories, which had been established to

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Speaker 1: study Rocky Mountain spotted fever and later became part of

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Speaker 1: the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He and

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Speaker 1: his team were studying Rocky Mountain spotted fever on Long Island.

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Speaker 1: Ticks can carry.

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Speaker 2: Multiple diseases, and people who regularly encounterticks can wind up

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Speaker 2: with more than one, so this research on Rocky Mountain

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Speaker 2: spotted fever was overlapping with research into other tickborn pathogens,

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Speaker 2: and some of the patients had em This research involved

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Speaker 2: collecting large numbers of tics and studying the microorganisms that

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Speaker 2: were in their bodies. One of the microorganisms that they

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Speaker 2: found was a spirikeat. After finding this spira keet in

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Speaker 2: the bodies of ticks, researchers also spotted it in the

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Speaker 2: blood of patients with lime disease. In nineteen eighty two,

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Speaker 2: the spira keat was named Borellia Burgdorferi in honor of

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Speaker 2: Willie Bergdorfer, so it is epotymous both for Lime Connecticut

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Speaker 2: and for him today. Lime disease is found primarily in

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Speaker 2: North America, Europe, and Asia, and there are multiple species

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Speaker 2: of Burrellia bacteria that can cause it. Different species are

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Speaker 2: prevalent in different parts of the world. It's most often

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Speaker 2: spread by tics in the genus Exodes, with the exact

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Speaker 2: tick again ring from one region to another. In eastern

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Speaker 2: North America is usually the black legged tick, also called

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Speaker 2: the deer tick or Exodies scapularis. Whether these ticks actually

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Speaker 2: transmit lime disease varies from place to place, depending on

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Speaker 2: what animals the ticks are feeding on and whether those

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Speaker 2: animals carry the bacteria. For example, in the northeastern United States,

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Speaker 2: the ticks usually feed on rodents in their larval and

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Speaker 2: nymphal stages, and those rodents often carry the bacteria, but

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Speaker 2: in the Southwest, ticks at those stages of their lives

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Speaker 2: are often feeding on lizards, which do not.

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Speaker 1: In North America, lime disease is also associated with deer,

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Speaker 1: but deer don't contract the disease and they don't pass

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Speaker 1: it on to ticks. Instead, deer are a primary food

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Speaker 1: source for adult tics, with those adults producing the next

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Speaker 1: generation of ticks, which start that psycolope again by picking

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00:20:01,359 --> 00:20:05,000
Speaker 1: up Brillia bacteria from infected rodents when they feed as

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Speaker 1: larvae and nymphs.

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Speaker 2: Researchers believe this connection to deer is why lime disease

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Speaker 2: really started to become an issue in the mid twentieth

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Speaker 2: century in North America, and that traces back to the

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Speaker 2: ecological history of the continent. There's evidence that Borellia bacteria

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00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:27,359
Speaker 2: existed in North America prior to the arrival of European colonists,

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Speaker 2: and so did rodents and deer and humans, all the

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Speaker 2: ingredients that are needed for lime disease transmission. But it

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Speaker 2: is also likely that there were a lot fewer deer

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Speaker 2: in North America then than there are today, since there

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Speaker 2: were earlier on a lot more large predators like wolves,

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Speaker 2: and more people hunting deer for food and other resources.

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Speaker 2: Indigenous land stewardship practices like controlled burns may have also

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Speaker 2: helped reduce the population of ticks. Then, as Europeans started

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Speaker 2: colonizing the Americas, deer were driven nearly to extinction through

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Speaker 2: overhunting and habitat loss. At the start of the twentieth century,

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Speaker 2: there were as few as three hundred thousand white tailed

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Speaker 2: deer across all of North America. Because of a combination

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Speaker 2: of conservation laws, changes in land use, and changes in

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Speaker 2: hunting patterns, the population of deer rebounded dramatically over the

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Speaker 2: first half of the twentieth century, and it's estimated that

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Speaker 2: they are between thirty and thirty five million white tailed

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Speaker 2: deer in North America today. Warmer winters due to climate

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Speaker 2: change also mean that fewer ticks are dying over the winter,

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Speaker 2: so it's likely that a person living in suburban New

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Speaker 2: England is living in proximity to more deer and more

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Speaker 2: deer ticks than people in the same region were prior

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Speaker 2: to colonization. In the nineteen nineties, a vaccine for lyme

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Speaker 2: disease was introduced in the United States, but it was

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Speaker 2: withdrawn from the market in two thousand and two. This

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00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:04,200
Speaker 2: vaccine required a dose roughly every other year, and while

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Speaker 2: it definitely reduced a person's risk for developing lime disease,

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00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:11,879
Speaker 2: it was reported to be about seventy five percent effective.

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Speaker 2: There were, of course, people who wanted that number to

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Speaker 2: be higher. There were also some concerns about whether the

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Speaker 2: vaccine could trigger autoimmune arthritis, although an investigation into those

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Speaker 2: concerns could not confirm any kind of connection. Lime disease

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00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:31,920
Speaker 2: was also a lot less prevalent in two thousand and

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Speaker 2: two than it is today, so there just was not

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Speaker 2: as much demand for a vaccine, especially one that people

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00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:43,560
Speaker 2: felt like didn't give them complete protection like it definitely,

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Speaker 2: as we said, reduced the risk of the disease, but

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Speaker 2: there were people for as sort of consumers wanted it

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Speaker 2: to be one hundred percent. However, there is a new

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Speaker 2: vaccine that is now in phase three clinical trials, with

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Speaker 2: the results of those trials expected by the end of

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Speaker 2: this year. That means prevention for lime disease is all

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Speaker 2: about avoiding tick bites. It's believed to take at least

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Speaker 2: twenty four hours of attachment for a tick to transmit

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00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:15,600
Speaker 2: the spirakeat to a person, so people who spend time

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00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:19,399
Speaker 2: outdoors are advised to thoroughly check themselves for ticks and

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Speaker 2: immediately remove them. People are also advised to seek medical

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00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 2: attention if they are bitten by a tick, regardless of

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Speaker 2: whether they develop that bullseye rash or develop other symptoms.

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Speaker 2: The rash develops in most cases but not all of them,

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Speaker 2: and it is also a lot harder to see on

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Speaker 2: people that have darker skin. Lime disease is treated with antibiotics,

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Speaker 2: most often doxycycline. Okay, my primary care doctor's my chart

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Speaker 2: landing page has a big thing that's like, have you

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Speaker 2: been bitten by a tick? Press this button. A couple

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Speaker 2: of quick notes before we take a break. There is

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Speaker 2: a conspiracy theory that lieme disease escaped from a research facility,

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00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 2: but as we have discussed, there is a lot of

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00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 2: established evidence that the bacteria that caused lime disease existed

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00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 2: in multiple parts of the world for decades or centuries

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00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:16,440
Speaker 2: before that could have happened. In addition to what we've

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Speaker 2: already talked about, the bacteria have also been found in

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00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:24,440
Speaker 2: nineteenth and early twentieth century rodents and tics in museum

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Speaker 2: collections in North America, which I find a fascinating way

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Speaker 2: to look at that.

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Speaker 1: Let's go back to the tax that.

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00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 2: Are made animals and the preserved tics and see what

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Speaker 2: they've gotten their bodies. Also, there are people who continue

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Speaker 2: to have symptoms related to lime disease after going through treatment,

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00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:47,920
Speaker 2: including cognitive issues, fatigue, and body aches. For a long

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00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:51,639
Speaker 2: time people called this chronic lime, but the current recommended

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00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 2: terminology within the medical field is post treatment lime disease syndrome.

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Speaker 2: Because people experiencing these symptoms don't have signs the actual

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00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 2: pathogens still in their bodies. There's been a ton of

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00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:08,439
Speaker 2: discussion and controversy around these symptoms and the terminology around

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Speaker 2: it for years. It's been called the liemars. That is

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Speaker 2: how contentious it is. This is way beyond what we

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00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 2: can really sort through as lay people on a history podcast.

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Speaker 2: But a lot of it has been rooted in the

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00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:23,880
Speaker 2: fact that people still have symptoms, but that doctors can't

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00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 2: find evidence of what could be causing those symptoms. However,

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00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 2: since the COVID nineteen pandemic, in the existence of long COVID,

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00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 2: it does seem like there has been more awareness of

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00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:40,400
Speaker 2: potential long term symptoms following and infection. We will talk

396
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,640
Speaker 2: about Rocky Mountain spotted Fever after we have another sponsor

397
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 2: break the first reports of the illness that became known

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Speaker 2: as Rocky Mountain spotted fever. We're in bitter Root, Montana

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00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 2: in eighteen seventy three. At the time, most of the

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00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:09,120
Speaker 2: people living in this region were either white settlers or

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00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 2: indigenous people, including the Bitter Root Salish, whose settlers called

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00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 2: the Flathead, although head flattening is not a Salish practice.

403
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:22,479
Speaker 2: Symptoms of this illness included a fever and a rash,

404
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 2: as well as joint pain, nausea, and vomiting, and it

405
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:30,640
Speaker 2: was very frequently fatal. People started calling this new disease

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Speaker 2: black measles, and since it seemed to strike in the

407
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 2: spring and summer, people thought it might be caused by

408
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 2: drinking melt water runoff from the mountains.

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00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 1: There were tensions and violence between the white newcomers and

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00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: the Salish during this period, and the Salish would eventually

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00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:52,200
Speaker 1: be forcibly removed to the Flathead Indian Reservation, which is

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00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: also home to the Upper Pendorat and the Coutiny. But

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00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 1: white people also recognized that the indigenous peoples of the

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00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:03,359
Speaker 1: area might have some knowledge of this disease, so early

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00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: researchers asked indigenous people as well as white trappers, traders,

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00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,360
Speaker 1: and missionaries who had had lots of interactions with them,

417
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 1: and based on these conversations, it seemed like this illness

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00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 1: was something new.

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00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 2: Over the eighteen eighties and nineties, cases were also reported

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00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,120
Speaker 2: in the Quinn River Valley in Nevada and in other

421
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 2: parts of Montana. In eighteen ninety nine, physician Edward E.

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00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:32,680
Speaker 2: Maxey of Boise, Idaho wrote what is regarded as the

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00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 2: first clinical description of the disease in a paper titled

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00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,880
Speaker 2: Some Observations on the so called spotted Fever of Idaho

425
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 2: quote a feberal disease characterized clinically by a continuous, moderately

426
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 2: high fever and a profuse or pupyhic eruption in the skin,

427
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 2: appearing first on ankles, wrists, and forehead, but rapidly spreading

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00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:58,959
Speaker 2: to all parts of body. By the early nineteen nineties,

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00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 2: the disease had also been reported in Washington, California, Arizona,

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00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 2: and New Mexico.

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00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: The prevalence and seriousness of this disease was an influence

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00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: on the creation of the Montana State Board of Health

433
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh one, two years after Montana attained statehood.

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00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,359
Speaker 1: Understanding and trying to prevent or treat this disease was

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Speaker 1: one of the Board's biggest priorities from its inception. On

436
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:27,119
Speaker 1: July first, nineteen oh two, the Board issued a paper

437
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: authored by W. M. Chowning and LB. Wilson that suggested

438
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 1: ground squirrels as a possible host for the disease and

439
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: tics as a potential vector. The disease appeared and disappeared

440
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: along with when ticks were most active, and a lot

441
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: of patients had a tick bite in their history.

442
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 2: The following year, bacteriologist John F. Anderson studied the epidemiological

443
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 2: data that was available and confirmed that most documented cases

444
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 2: of this disease were in people who had a tick

445
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 2: bite before the star of their symptoms. His paper was

446
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 2: also the first written use of the name Rocky Mountain

447
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 2: spotted fever. A lot of the places where the disease

448
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 2: was being reported were in and around the Rocky Mountains.

449
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 2: In nineteen oh six, pathologist Howard Ricketts found infected wood

450
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 2: ticks in the Bitter Root Valley and showed that their

451
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 2: bites could sicken guinea pigs. In nineteen oh eight, the

452
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 2: Rocky Mountain wood tick was named dermaicentor andersonai after John F. Anderson,

453
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 2: and in nineteen oh nine, a bacterium that Ricketts isolated

454
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 2: from crushed tick bodies, which causes Rocky Mountain spotted fever,

455
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 2: was named Ricketzia Ricketsie after him. Like lime disease and

456
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 2: West malvirus. Rocky Mountain spotted fever was happening mostly seasonally

457
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 2: when the ticks were feeding, so the research into it

458
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 2: was really focused on the summer months.

459
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 1: As the summer of.

460
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 2: Nineteen ten approached, Howard Ricketts was not sure if he

461
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 2: was going to get funding that summer, so he went

462
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 2: to Mexico City to work on an epidemic typhus outbreak.

463
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 2: Typhus is another disease caused by bacteria in the genus

464
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 2: Ricketsia that's Ricketzia prasekii, named for Stanislas von Prausek. Sanaslos

465
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 2: von Prowsek and his colleague Enrique to Rochelima discovered this

466
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 2: bacterium and they both died of typhus, which they both

467
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 2: contracted in the course of their work. Howard Ricketts also

468
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 2: contracted typhus while working in Mexico City, and he died

469
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 2: there on May tenth, nineteen ten, at the age of

470
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 2: only thirty nine. With the Rocky Mountain spotted fever bacterium

471
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 2: and its vector both identified, the next big focus was

472
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 2: on trying to stop the disease. Today, doxycycline is the

473
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 2: typical treatment for several diseases in the Ricketzia genus, including

474
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 2: both rocky Mountain spotted fever and epidemic typhus, but the

475
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 2: first true antibiotic, Pennacia villain, wasn't isolated until nineteen twenty eight,

476
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 2: and doxycycline wasn't patented until nineteen fifty seven, so in

477
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 2: the early twentieth century, the focus was on trying to

478
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:16,719
Speaker 2: control ticks. Researchers had pinpointed a number of animals that

479
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 2: were susceptible to Rocky Mountain spotted fever and were often

480
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 2: bitten by tick, larvae and nymphs. That included various squirrels, chipmunks,

481
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 2: and rats. But the bigger concern from a public health

482
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 2: perspective was the animals that were being bitten by adult

483
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 2: ticks and also bringing those ticks into close proximity with humans.

484
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 2: Those were mostly cattle and other livestock, and this is where.

485
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: Things got wild. Doctor Robert Cooley was head of Montana

486
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: State College's Department of Entomology and Zoology. He was inspired

487
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: by the work of Howard Ricketts and two of his

488
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 1: colleagues had gotten Rocky Mountain spotted fever in the course

489
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 1: of their work and had died. Cooley's proposal was to

490
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: reduce the number of ticks that humans were exposed to

491
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: by reducing their numbers in cattle. He worked with the

492
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: Montana State Board of Entomology to develop a dipping program.

493
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: Dipping stations would be set up around the affected area

494
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: and filled with vats of pesticide, and ranchers would drive

495
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: their cattle to those stations, where they would swim through

496
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:27,959
Speaker 1: the liquid in the vats. This effort was funded by

497
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: the federal government and the state of Montana.

498
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 2: The solution that the cattle were going to swim through

499
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 2: was made from arsenic soap, kerosene, and water. Obviously, since

500
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,239
Speaker 2: the point was to kill ticks, the solution needed to

501
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 2: include substances that would be toxic, and arsenic and kerosene

502
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 2: both fit that bill. Today we know that arsenic is

503
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 2: a carcinogen, but at the time, the more immediate and

504
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 2: the known concern was that if the constant creation of

505
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 2: arsenic was too high in this dip, it would burn

506
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 2: the cattle. It would especially burn them on parts of

507
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 2: their bodies, like their utters that were not as densely

508
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 2: covered in hair. Authorities had to work out the best

509
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 2: proportions of arsenic through trial and error. Also, Montana ranchers

510
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 2: weren't exactly people who were known for being excited about

511
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 2: complying with the government. Being ordered to do something that

512
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 2: could hurt their cattle made that already existing conflict even worse.

513
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 2: Many ranchers refused to have dipping vats located on their land,

514
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 2: worried not just about their own cattle, but about ticks

515
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 2: being brought in on other ranchers cows who were coming

516
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 2: to be dipped. In June of nineteen thirteen, someone smashed

517
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 2: the dipping vat in Hamilton, Montana with a sledge hammer,

518
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 2: and about a week later someone blew up the vat

519
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 2: in Florence, Montana with dynamite. The rancher whose Hamilton proper,

520
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 2: the first vaut was on, was tried and acquitted for

521
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 2: malicious mischief, and afterward he sued the officials who were

522
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 2: running the program. Eventually, authorities did develop a formulation for

523
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:16,760
Speaker 2: the dip that seemed safe enough for the cattle, although

524
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 2: the arsenic was still a carcinogen, something not really understood

525
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:24,839
Speaker 2: until later. Within a few years, there was less resistance

526
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,800
Speaker 2: to the dipping program and most cattle in the area

527
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 2: were being dipped as well as sheep, horses and goats.

528
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 2: The number of Rocky Mountain spotted fever cases started to drop,

529
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 2: although there was a case of two children who had

530
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 2: been helping at the dipping station on their famili's land

531
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 2: contracting the disease and dying. The presence of Rocky Mountain

532
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 2: spotted fever and the efforts to control it led to

533
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 2: the establishment of Rocky Mountain laboratories, which we mentioned earlier

534
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 2: in our discussion of lime disease. In nineteen twenty one,

535
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 2: the US Public Health Service started venting an unused schoolhouse

536
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 2: west of Hamilton, Montana, to function as a laboratory, rather

537
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:09,240
Speaker 2: than disease researchers having to work mostly out of tents

538
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 2: and sheds. In nineteen twenty six and nineteen twenty seven,

539
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 2: a dedicated entomological lab was built in Hamilton, and people

540
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 2: in the area were so worried about disease carrying ticks

541
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 2: escaping from the facility that it was also surrounded by

542
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 2: a moat, although that moat was never filled with water.

543
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 2: The decision to build a moat followed a series of

544
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 2: lawsuits people filed to try to stop the facility from

545
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:34,760
Speaker 2: being built.

546
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:35,399
Speaker 1: At all.

547
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 2: By then, doctors Roscoe Spencer and Ralph Parker had developed

548
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 2: a vaccine for Rocky Mountain spotted fever using tissue from

549
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 2: infected ticks that was then treated with phenol. This vaccine

550
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,759
Speaker 2: was in use in humans by nineteen twenty seven. It

551
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 2: was at least somewhat effective. In nineteen thirty seven, Rocky

552
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 2: Mountain Laboratories became part of the National Institutes of Health.

553
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:05,840
Speaker 2: That same year, the movie green Light starring Errol Flynn,

554
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,720
Speaker 2: told the fictionalized story of a surgeon studying Rocky Mountain

555
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 2: spotted fever in Montana. Errol Flynn is of course better

556
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 2: known for his more swashbuckling roles like Various Pirates and

557
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 2: Cowboys and even Robin Hood. Today, as we said earlier,

558
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 2: Rocky Mountain Laboratories is part of the National Institute of

559
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,799
Speaker 2: Allergy and Infectious Diseases. It is today also home to

560
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 2: one of the United States Maximum Containment Laboratories, known as

561
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 2: a biosafety Level for facility. It no longer has a

562
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 2: moat we should bring back moats despite its name. Today

563
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 2: in the US, Rocky Mountain spotted fever is most common

564
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:48,920
Speaker 2: not in the Rocky Mountains, but in the southern and

565
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:53,080
Speaker 2: Central Atlantic states. More than sixty percent of cases are

566
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 2: reported in North Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Missouri. It's

567
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 2: also present in other parts of the world that are

568
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 2: home to the various species of ticks that can carry it,

569
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 2: and in some of those places it has its own eponyms,

570
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:11,320
Speaker 2: including sal pallo fever and Brazilian spotted fever. In Brazil,

571
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 2: there is no commercially available vaccine today, and while it

572
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 2: can be treated with antibiotics, it can be hard to diagnose,

573
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 2: especially if someone doesn't recall being bitten by a tick.

574
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,400
Speaker 2: As with lime disease, the main method for prevention is

575
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 2: avoiding tick bites. That vaccine that had been developed back

576
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 2: in the twenties, once antibiotics came on the market, was

577
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 2: no longer really made. The tips for avoiding tick and

578
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 2: mosquito bites are pretty much the same for all of them.

579
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 2: Wear long sleeves and long pants, and use insect repellent

580
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 2: that's the big stuff. Try to stay out of very

581
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:50,280
Speaker 2: tall grass for ticks. Also, try not to be around

582
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,720
Speaker 2: outside around dawn and dusk for most breeds of mosquito.

583
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 2: Some breeds of mosquito don't really care about that though,

584
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 2: and they will come tied about you at any time.

585
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 1: They don't have watches, they don't know when their schedule begins.

586
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,880
Speaker 2: When I was living in the Atlanta area, my neighborhood

587
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,480
Speaker 2: had a lot of Asian tiger mosquitos and they were

588
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 2: out at all times of the day and they would

589
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:13,760
Speaker 2: bite me between getting out of the car and getting

590
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 2: into the house after I got home from work. It's

591
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:19,280
Speaker 2: a full time job being an Asian tiger mosquito. Yeah,

592
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 2: I was not a fan of them. Anyway. We'll talk

593
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 2: more about these things on Friday. I have an email

594
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,439
Speaker 2: for our listener mail from listener Stephanie, and Stephanie wrote,

595
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 2: Hello Tracy and Holly. The phrase do your own research

596
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 2: is one commonly heard or posted online. This has led

597
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 2: me to wonder how, in the age of AI generated responses,

598
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 2: crowdsourced Wikipedia pages, and self proclaimed experts on YouTube and TikTok,

599
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 2: does one find reliable sources online that provide a factual

600
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:55,360
Speaker 2: and supported information. Since so much of your work involves research,

601
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 2: I thought you might be able to point me toward

602
00:38:57,360 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 2: some resources. My goal is eventually to take a class

603
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 2: or course to learn more about how to conduct proper

604
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 2: research from credible sources. My ultimate goal is to teach

605
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:09,720
Speaker 2: my young son to differentiate fact from opinion and credible

606
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 2: sources from dubious ones. Thank you for the many years

607
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 2: you have kept me company during long commutes, sleepless nights,

608
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:22,280
Speaker 2: and painful Excel based work projects. As a lifelong learner,

609
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 2: I hope to hear your voices for many more years

610
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 2: to come. Sincerely, yours, Stephanie. Stephanie did not have pet

611
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:35,800
Speaker 2: pictures to share and instead sent a little human made

612
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 2: completely from scratch. Unfortunately, little human picture did not come

613
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:44,839
Speaker 2: through for whatever reason. I will assume this human is adorable.

614
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 2: Thank you for this email, Stephanie. I first want to

615
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 2: acknowledge that the rise of large language models and generative

616
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 2: AI has made this a lot harder. So much so

617
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say thing number one. Currently, I am still

618
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 2: using Google to do a lot of searching. There are

619
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 2: other search engine options. They all have pros and cons.

620
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:17,359
Speaker 2: In Google, if you put minus AI at the end,

621
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:21,479
Speaker 2: you should stop getting an AI summary at the top,

622
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 2: and I highly encourage this. Do you.

623
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:29,919
Speaker 1: For clarity? Are you typing out the word minus or are.

624
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:34,240
Speaker 2: You using the minus sign, the dash, the dash yeah,

625
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 2: dash AI to mean minus the AI summary is often wrong. Yeah.

626
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,319
Speaker 2: Uh And when I have not put that in there,

627
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:47,720
Speaker 2: I have had laughably wrong AI summaries in things related

628
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:52,760
Speaker 2: to UH to work when I'm doing research. And something

629
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,839
Speaker 2: I really would like everyone to understand is that when

630
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 2: it comes to things like chat, GPT and other generative

631
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 2: a I, the process by which they give correct answers

632
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:10,280
Speaker 2: is the same as the process by which they generate

633
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 2: things that are plausible but wrong. This is not something

634
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 2: that AI developers can fix. It is inherent into how

635
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 2: these models work. They will always be giving wrong answers

636
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 2: that sound right. Do not ask chat GPT for information

637
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:29,799
Speaker 2: on stuff, is my opinion, because it might give you

638
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 2: the right answer, but it might give you the answer

639
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:33,760
Speaker 2: that sounds right and is wrong.

640
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: It's a day troll, it is. It really is.

641
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:42,799
Speaker 2: Also, on a less serious note, if you like me,

642
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 2: play video games and sometimes you need a hint for

643
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 2: something because you're stuck. If you don't put in the

644
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 2: minus AI at the end, the AI summary is just

645
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 2: going to show you the full on answer. It might

646
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 2: be the right answer, it might not, but like it's

647
00:41:58,320 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 2: not going to give you it's not going to point

648
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:02,840
Speaker 2: you to a page where someone has written a discrete

649
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:05,399
Speaker 2: hint that can help you toward the right answer. It's

650
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:06,880
Speaker 2: going to show you the right thing in your face.

651
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 2: I don't like that. I'm laughing because do you remember

652
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 2: for a minute what people were advising before minus AI

653
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 2: was to put a swear word at the end of

654
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 2: your query. Oh funny, because it wouldn't It would automatically

655
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 2: throw that out. Yes, but I ran into the problem

656
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 2: where I was ending up on websites that I did

657
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 2: not need to be visiting. Sure. Ever, Yeah, and now

658
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 2: I'm on the KG part of the internet.

659
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: Yeah.

660
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 2: There are also plugins that will strip out the AI

661
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 2: summaries and other browsers that just don't do AI summaries,

662
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 2: but just the circles background don't rely on the AI summaries.

663
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 2: A lot of the other tips are the same as

664
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 2: they were prior to the evely of generative AI, which

665
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 2: is figuring out who is responsible for a piece of

666
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 2: content and what their reasoning is for doing it. So,

667
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:16,839
Speaker 2: like confirming that the byline on the piece or the

668
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 2: name that the person has given in their YouTube or

669
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 2: TikTok video, like confirming that is a real person do

670
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 2: they work for? For example, a college or a university.

671
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:30,719
Speaker 2: When I used to train people on this as part

672
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 2: of my job, we talked about the use of government sources.

673
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:38,919
Speaker 2: A lot of those government sources are now being deliberately undermined.

674
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 2: We've already talked on the show before about like public

675
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:46,360
Speaker 2: health expertise being stripped out of the health and medicine

676
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 2: related government agencies to be replaced with literal quacks. So

677
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:54,480
Speaker 2: I can't really advocate for that anymore the way that

678
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 2: I used to. But a good starting point is often

679
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 2: to like confer firm who this person is, read their

680
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 2: you know, their biography, their brief bio on whatever do

681
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:10,920
Speaker 2: they where do they work, what is their background? Why

682
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,839
Speaker 2: are they writing about this? And over time you can

683
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 2: kind of develop list of sources that you trust, who

684
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 2: you know if someone has an agenda, that agenda is

685
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 2: to get real, factual, accurate information, not to for example,

686
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 2: cherry pick badly constructed studies to say that thailanol causes autism.

687
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 2: It doesn't. This is actually well established through many years

688
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 2: of research that have happened in multiple places around the world,

689
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 2: specifically looking at whether thilan al also called acetaminifit. I

690
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 2: don't remember what the name is and most of the

691
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 2: rest of the world. But like we've already studied this,

692
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 2: we know that it does not cause autism. And once again,

693
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 2: even if it did cause autism, people are talking about

694
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 2: autism as though it is like the worst thing in

695
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:09,800
Speaker 2: the world. When autistic people are human beings whose minds

696
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 2: work and process information a little differently than people who

697
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:18,880
Speaker 2: aren't autistic, and it's also a spectrum. There are bajillion

698
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:20,359
Speaker 2: things I feel like we have to say every time

699
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 2: this comes up. I know. The other thing, right, is

700
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 2: that autism is incredibly complex and there's no one thing.

701
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:32,719
Speaker 1: That causes it.

702
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 2: Right, often there are guesses about many layers of things

703
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 2: that may have led to it, right, but there's no

704
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 2: one thing where you go, no, it's this. We went

705
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 2: through this with the vaccine thing a million years ago,

706
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:52,239
Speaker 2: and yet here it is again. Yeah, yeah, we know

707
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:58,800
Speaker 2: for sure that there is no causal relationship between vaccines

708
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:05,000
Speaker 2: and autism or cedamnifin during pregnancy and autism, and yet

709
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 2: it's being trotted out again. Also, a cedamnifin during pregnancy

710
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 2: is one of the few things you can take for

711
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:15,360
Speaker 2: a fever, and a fever that goes unchecked during pregnancy

712
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 2: can actually cause some very real problems, and that is

713
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:22,240
Speaker 2: studied and documented. Yes, I have very strong feelings about

714
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 2: this for someone that neither has nor wants children, right,

715
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:28,279
Speaker 2: I really don't like making parents feel like they're doing

716
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 2: it all wrong when most parents just want to do

717
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 2: the best for their kids, right right, right. So yeahs

718
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like we are still figuring

719
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 2: out what all the best steps to take are regarding

720
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 2: how to get information that's accurate in the age of

721
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 2: large language models and chat bots and generative AI. But

722
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:06,280
Speaker 2: the broad sweeping things are don't trust AI generated stuff,

723
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 2: whether it's video or audio or text.

724
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: It is likely to be wrong.

725
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 2: In the process of coming up with wrong answers is

726
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 2: the same process that yields right answers in other cases

727
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 2: and destroys.

728
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:21,640
Speaker 1: The environment in the process. Yeah, it's not.

729
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:25,800
Speaker 2: It uses a lot of electricity. A lot of places

730
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 2: that have data centers for these nearby are really struggling

731
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 2: with their energy use and energy bills. And boy do

732
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 2: I hate it when there's like an everybody, please don't

733
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 2: run your air conditioning so much when it's ninety seven degrees.

734
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 2: While we are actually going to give some tax breaks

735
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 2: to the giant data center that is causing an inordinate

736
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 2: use of electricity. Anyway, that's not actually related to Stephanie's question.

737
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:56,280
Speaker 1: Stephanie, you've opened pandors.

738
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're both having a time over here today. So yeah, big,

739
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 2: big part of it is just figuring out who wrote something,

740
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 2: what is their background, why did they write it? And

741
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:11,640
Speaker 2: that continues to be true even as so much more

742
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 2: stuff on the Internet and elsewhere is being generated by

743
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 2: chatbot of some sort. If you would like to send

744
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 2: us a note about this or any other podcast, we're

745
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 2: at History Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. If your email

746
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:33,360
Speaker 2: is about how large language models are great and we

747
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 2: should stop being blood heightes, I want you to listen

748
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:38,759
Speaker 2: to our episode about blood heightes and what that word

749
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:42,320
Speaker 2: really means, and then, better yet, just keep the emails

750
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 2: for yourself. You can subscribe to our show also on

751
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:50,160
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you'd like to get your podcasts.

752
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 2: Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

753
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the ie her radio app,

754
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

755
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 1: H