WEBVTT - The Imaginary Crimes of Margit Hamosh 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:23.276 Pushkin. In early summer of nineteen ninety nine, there was 0:00:23.316 --> 0:00:28.396 a strange incident in Belgium. 0:00:28.636 --> 0:00:32.196 Products had been taken back from the market when it happened, 0:00:32.916 --> 0:00:35.516 but obviously it was already a bit too late. 0:00:36.476 --> 0:00:39.236 It began at a secondary school in a little town 0:00:39.316 --> 0:00:43.876 called Bornum, just outside Antwerp. A group of students got sick, 0:00:44.636 --> 0:00:49.996 abdominal distress, headaches, nausea, trembling, dizziness. Dozens of kids in 0:00:49.996 --> 0:00:52.356 the first wave all ended up in the. 0:00:52.356 --> 0:00:55.756 Hospital and the only commonality was that they had been 0:00:55.796 --> 0:00:59.876 eating together, but each had eaten their own sandwiches, so 0:00:59.956 --> 0:01:04.836 there was no possibility of a food born problem. 0:01:05.156 --> 0:01:09.076 That's Benoit Memory. He's a medical toxicologist at the University 0:01:09.276 --> 0:01:12.156 of Lovin. He was part of the group that investigated 0:01:12.196 --> 0:01:13.756 the outbreak among the students. 0:01:14.156 --> 0:01:16.036 The only thing that they had in common is that 0:01:16.076 --> 0:01:20.116 they had drunk coca cola from bottles from a crate 0:01:21.076 --> 0:01:25.716 and allegedly there was a strange odor in the coke. 0:01:26.116 --> 0:01:31.236 And then the school teachers went in the different classrooms 0:01:31.756 --> 0:01:37.796 asking is anybody feeling unwell and drunk coca cola, which 0:01:38.716 --> 0:01:42.476 of course made sense at the time, but that led 0:01:42.476 --> 0:01:46.196 a few more children to report sick to be taken 0:01:46.236 --> 0:01:46.876 to hospital. 0:01:48.196 --> 0:01:51.476 The story went national. The evening news was a montage 0:01:51.476 --> 0:01:55.196 of ambulances and worried parents. The next day, four more 0:01:55.236 --> 0:01:56.636 schools reported outbreaks. 0:01:57.196 --> 0:02:00.796 I mean, it was really a state of panic. 0:02:05.676 --> 0:02:08.836 Every single Coca Cola product in Belgium was pulled from 0:02:08.836 --> 0:02:12.916 the shep and destroyed, thirty million cans and bottles, the 0:02:12.996 --> 0:02:16.796 largest recall in Coca Cola history. The company was in crisis, 0:02:17.076 --> 0:02:21.316 the stock price plummeted. I was transfixed by the Belgium 0:02:21.316 --> 0:02:24.676 coke crisis, not because I had any special interest in 0:02:24.716 --> 0:02:28.996 Coca Cola or Belgium, but because the whole affair reminded 0:02:29.036 --> 0:02:32.836 me of another panic, something I'd lived through years before 0:02:33.116 --> 0:02:40.716 that left me baffled and frustrated. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. 0:02:41.076 --> 0:02:45.196 You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things forgotten 0:02:45.236 --> 0:02:51.316 and misunderstood. The next two episodes are about a panic 0:02:51.356 --> 0:02:54.756 that swept the United States a quarter century ago, an 0:02:54.756 --> 0:03:00.156 outbreak of insanity. I was in the middle of it, 0:03:00.636 --> 0:03:03.236 covered it as a young reporter for the Washington Post, 0:03:03.636 --> 0:03:06.196 but it took the Belgian coke crisis a few years 0:03:06.276 --> 0:03:10.636 later for me to understand why it happened because you 0:03:10.676 --> 0:03:17.756 know what poisoned all those Belgians. Nothing. The best explanation 0:03:17.836 --> 0:03:20.036 Coca Cola could come up with was that some of 0:03:20.076 --> 0:03:23.316 the carbon dioxide at their local bottling plant had been 0:03:23.396 --> 0:03:27.796 contaminated with sulfur compounds enough to cause a slight odor, 0:03:28.036 --> 0:03:31.716 but trace amounts orders of magnitude below what is necessary 0:03:31.716 --> 0:03:32.516 to cause illness. 0:03:33.036 --> 0:03:36.916 No major toxins detected, nothing that would suggest true poisoning, 0:03:37.396 --> 0:03:41.436 and so epidemiologically it made no sense that there was 0:03:42.196 --> 0:03:45.036 poisoning by a single, the same agent. 0:03:45.636 --> 0:03:48.836 After looking into it, Memory and his colleagues concluded that 0:03:48.876 --> 0:03:51.476 the crisis was an example of what's known as a 0:03:51.996 --> 0:03:58.316 mass sociogenic illness, what used to be called mass hysteria. 0:04:01.876 --> 0:04:06.596 People had real symptoms. They were nauseated and vomiting and dizzy, 0:04:06.956 --> 0:04:08.916 and the initial batch of coke served at the school 0:04:08.916 --> 0:04:12.636 in Jornum was a bit off, But the coke didn't 0:04:12.676 --> 0:04:17.156 poison them. There was no actual connection between their sickness 0:04:17.556 --> 0:04:22.036 and the thing they thought made them sick. Memory says 0:04:22.076 --> 0:04:26.036 that he saw another sociogenic outbreak firsthand in Soviet Georgia 0:04:26.196 --> 0:04:29.716 in nineteen eighty nine. Soviet troops had sprayed a group 0:04:29.756 --> 0:04:34.676 of protesters with chemical agents, a terrible incident. The strange thing, though, 0:04:34.916 --> 0:04:37.356 was that the children of the protesters had the same 0:04:37.596 --> 0:04:41.556 symptoms as their parents, even though they weren't the ones 0:04:41.556 --> 0:04:45.636 who were sprayed. In the medical literature, there are countless 0:04:45.676 --> 0:04:49.396 cases like this, a group of people linked by some 0:04:49.556 --> 0:04:52.836 shared anxiety come to believe they had been exposed to 0:04:52.916 --> 0:04:57.516 something malevolent. And the scary thing is that when you're 0:04:57.556 --> 0:05:00.596 in the middle of a sociogenic outbreak, when you're vomiting 0:05:00.596 --> 0:05:02.796 and running a fever after drinking your can of coke, 0:05:03.116 --> 0:05:06.316 you have no idea, none that the cause of your 0:05:06.356 --> 0:05:08.476 illness is all in your imagination. 0:05:11.676 --> 0:05:14.716 So she spoke, I mean her native tongue was German, 0:05:15.236 --> 0:05:18.756 and then she spoke Hebrew, and she learned English, and 0:05:18.796 --> 0:05:21.396 she learned French, and she learned Latin. 0:05:21.956 --> 0:05:22.476 This is mom. 0:05:22.556 --> 0:05:27.396 Yeah, maybe she knew Aramic very well. 0:05:27.516 --> 0:05:31.516 Yes, she spoke with a private teacher rush in a 0:05:31.596 --> 0:05:34.156 high school conversational Latin. 0:05:34.756 --> 0:05:36.756 They's spoke Latin with each other. 0:05:37.556 --> 0:05:40.916 I'm at the house of Ada Hamish, just outside of Baltimore, 0:05:41.156 --> 0:05:45.876 on her porch. She's a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins. 0:05:45.876 --> 0:05:49.356 Next to her is her sister, Tamar, professor of medicine 0:05:49.596 --> 0:05:53.036 at Yale University, and next to Tamorrow their father, Paul, 0:05:53.396 --> 0:05:58.476 retired professor of medicine at Georgetown University. Atta and Tamar 0:05:58.716 --> 0:06:02.276 are talking about their mother, Marguite, also a professor of 0:06:02.316 --> 0:06:05.716 medicine at Georgetown University until she died of cancer in 0:06:05.716 --> 0:06:06.756 twenty eleven. 0:06:07.516 --> 0:06:08.356 And then when Jack. 0:06:08.196 --> 0:06:10.076 Cancer, she's like, oh, yeah, it's a little inconvenient, but 0:06:10.116 --> 0:06:12.676 it's gonna be fine, just the way she did her 0:06:12.716 --> 0:06:15.436 whole life, and she was very, very positive. She had 0:06:15.476 --> 0:06:18.836 this amazing ability to make whoever she was talking to 0:06:19.116 --> 0:06:21.236 think that they were the single most important person in 0:06:21.276 --> 0:06:23.076 the room with the most interesting story. 0:06:23.716 --> 0:06:27.316 Margite Hamish was born in Germany, then raised in Bucharest 0:06:27.396 --> 0:06:30.116 after her family fled the Nazis in nineteen thirty six. 0:06:30.756 --> 0:06:33.676 She met her husband Paul in Israel after the war. 0:06:34.556 --> 0:06:37.836 She was the star. He was the protector, He was 0:06:37.876 --> 0:06:38.316 the cook. 0:06:38.716 --> 0:06:40.436 He was the come out of school and make sure 0:06:40.436 --> 0:06:42.956 you don't have vaningitis when you can't move your neck. 0:06:43.476 --> 0:06:45.956 He came to the place, he came to the games. 0:06:45.956 --> 0:06:49.276 He cheered us on. He took a backseat to her. 0:06:49.636 --> 0:06:50.436 He always did. 0:06:51.116 --> 0:06:53.596 For sixty years. They were a team. 0:06:53.836 --> 0:06:55.236 They would have breakfast and bed together. 0:06:55.276 --> 0:06:56.956 They would drive to work together, they would work in 0:06:56.956 --> 0:06:58.676 the same office, they would drive home together, they would 0:06:58.716 --> 0:07:01.036 make dinner together, they would go and do whatever they 0:07:01.036 --> 0:07:01.876 were doing for the evening. 0:07:01.756 --> 0:07:03.436 Together, and they would go in the same bed. And 0:07:03.476 --> 0:07:05.156 my mother would say, I just don't see enough of 0:07:05.156 --> 0:07:09.716 your father all the time. 0:07:09.756 --> 0:07:14.796 I just don't see enough. Which, yeah, and that's what 0:07:14.836 --> 0:07:16.476 you would say, like, I don't know where it is. 0:07:16.476 --> 0:07:18.756 I'm like, I think you went to the bathroom, mom, No, 0:07:18.836 --> 0:07:19.796 I mean they were crazy. 0:07:19.836 --> 0:07:22.476 I mean yeah, even when they were in their sixties. 0:07:22.556 --> 0:07:25.116 You know, they always read the paper on a Sunday morning, 0:07:25.116 --> 0:07:30.116 and we had a big yeah, And so they would 0:07:30.116 --> 0:07:33.556 read the paper and they would chase each other around 0:07:33.636 --> 0:07:36.196 like I mean, like kids in love. I mean like 0:07:36.236 --> 0:07:38.556 I'm like, okay, guys, like you're sixty five, we've had enough, 0:07:39.036 --> 0:07:39.716 come on all right. 0:07:39.996 --> 0:07:42.436 Yeah, It's it was bizarre. It was very bizarre. 0:07:45.996 --> 0:07:50.396 Marguite Hamish discovered an enzyme critical for newborn digestion, became 0:07:50.436 --> 0:07:53.396 an expert on human milk and nutrition, lectured all over 0:07:53.436 --> 0:07:56.956 the world, ran a major laboratory at Georgetown funded by 0:07:57.036 --> 0:08:00.516 millions in research grants from the National Institutes of Health. 0:08:01.316 --> 0:08:04.396 An intellectual, elegant and cultured. 0:08:05.516 --> 0:08:06.036 Even when she. 0:08:06.036 --> 0:08:08.116 Had three children and a full time job and everything else, 0:08:08.156 --> 0:08:10.956 they went out at least three times a week to 0:08:11.196 --> 0:08:14.876 a play or a concert or performance every week. 0:08:14.996 --> 0:08:16.956 One weekend day was in museum. The other weekend day 0:08:16.996 --> 0:08:17.796 was cooking for the week. 0:08:18.716 --> 0:08:21.236 On Saturday afternoon, the offer was on and if you 0:08:21.316 --> 0:08:23.716 made a sound, you were dead, So you took a nap. 0:08:23.756 --> 0:08:25.836 From two to five Live from Lincoln suck Hit. 0:08:31.276 --> 0:08:34.716 In the late nineteen eighties, Marguerite Homash had a small 0:08:34.756 --> 0:08:38.476 problem in her lab, nothing major. A disagreement with one 0:08:38.516 --> 0:08:42.356 of her researchers. The researcher quit, Then she changed her 0:08:42.396 --> 0:08:46.996 mind wanted her job back. The Homishes rehired her. The 0:08:47.036 --> 0:08:50.796 second time around, the researcher grew even more disgruntled. She 0:08:50.956 --> 0:08:55.236 ended up making a series of accusations. Georgetown launched an investigation. 0:08:55.716 --> 0:08:58.996 Hamish was cleared, but the researcher then appealed her case 0:08:59.236 --> 0:09:02.756 to the National Institutes of Health, the institution that funded 0:09:02.796 --> 0:09:06.996 Hamish's research. Because the NAH gives out billions of dollars 0:09:06.996 --> 0:09:09.956 in research grants, they have a mechanism to ensure their 0:09:09.956 --> 0:09:13.396 money is used appropriately. In those days, it was an 0:09:13.436 --> 0:09:17.956 investigative unit called the OSI, the Office of Scientific Integrity. 0:09:18.636 --> 0:09:22.076 When universities could not resolve disputes on their own, the 0:09:22.116 --> 0:09:25.356 OSI would step in and take the case. That's what 0:09:25.476 --> 0:09:30.276 happened with Humish. The OSI investigated and wrote a report. 0:09:30.836 --> 0:09:33.916 Several people asked me what is this all about? And 0:09:33.956 --> 0:09:36.796 the truth is that I really didn't know what it 0:09:36.836 --> 0:09:39.156 was all about, in the sense that you know, there 0:09:39.196 --> 0:09:40.956 was a lot of ranting and rating going on. 0:09:44.036 --> 0:09:46.716 Now, let me ask you this, when was the last 0:09:46.716 --> 0:09:51.156 time you heard about an internal laboratory dispute between medical 0:09:51.196 --> 0:09:56.436 researchers working in some esoteric corner of human physiology. Unless 0:09:56.436 --> 0:10:00.556 you're a scientist, I'm going to guess never. People in 0:10:00.676 --> 0:10:04.996 academic laboratories work long hours in close quarters. The pay 0:10:05.076 --> 0:10:08.196 is low. You can spend years on an experiment with 0:10:08.316 --> 0:10:11.116 little to show for. You might see the person next 0:10:11.116 --> 0:10:13.276 to you get a job, or publish a paper, or 0:10:13.316 --> 0:10:17.276 win an award that you think you deserved. Competition for 0:10:17.356 --> 0:10:22.396 funding is intense. Labs are stressful places, so what That's 0:10:22.396 --> 0:10:27.036 why scientists publish their results to work out disagreements among themselves. 0:10:27.716 --> 0:10:33.196 Fights rarely go public except during a brief period in 0:10:33.276 --> 0:10:39.356 the early nineteen nineties, the window of insanity, when everything 0:10:39.716 --> 0:10:44.116 went public. Back then, I was on a team of 0:10:44.156 --> 0:10:47.716 science writers at the Washington Post. We call ourselves the Pod. 0:10:48.476 --> 0:10:51.356 We wrote about medicine and physics and psychology and covered 0:10:51.396 --> 0:10:55.156 the health bureaucracy, the NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, 0:10:55.356 --> 0:10:58.796 the CDC and what were we obsessed with? Not just 0:10:58.956 --> 0:11:03.236 us but our counterparts at other newspapers as well. Science fraud. 0:11:05.796 --> 0:11:10.276 There was the Baltimore case, an insanely complicated allegation against 0:11:10.276 --> 0:11:14.596 the Nobel Prize winner David Baltimore. The Gallow Case, an 0:11:14.716 --> 0:11:18.116 unbelievable tale of the AIDS virus and a lab theft. 0:11:18.996 --> 0:11:23.516 The Cleveland Clinic case It never ended, leaks, lawsuits, page 0:11:23.516 --> 0:11:27.716 one stories, big headlines. A science writer at the Chicago Tribune, 0:11:27.916 --> 0:11:32.036 a reporter named John Krudsen, wrote eighty thousand words on 0:11:32.076 --> 0:11:36.596 the Gallow case. Eighty thousand words for a newspaper. I 0:11:36.676 --> 0:11:40.156 have written books that aren't eighty thousand words. There was 0:11:40.196 --> 0:11:43.756 a nine hour Congressional hearing entirely devoted to a scientific 0:11:43.756 --> 0:11:48.756 paper entitled Altered Repertoire of Indogenous Immunoglobular Gene expression in 0:11:48.836 --> 0:11:54.196 transgenic mice containing a rearranged MEW heavy chain gene. Nine 0:11:54.236 --> 0:11:58.516 hours during which congressmen attempted to sound intelligent on the 0:11:58.556 --> 0:12:04.356 subject of transgenic MEW products. Then in the middle of 0:12:04.396 --> 0:12:08.516 all of this, Marguite Hamish. I never met her, but 0:12:08.636 --> 0:12:11.636 for some reason, out of all the cases that bubbled 0:12:11.716 --> 0:12:15.236 up in the great science Panic, hers was always the 0:12:15.276 --> 0:12:19.276 case that affected me the deepest. It made me angry 0:12:19.636 --> 0:12:21.556 in ways that will take the better part of this 0:12:21.676 --> 0:12:26.796 episode and the next to explain. Why did Marguerite Hamish 0:12:26.916 --> 0:12:29.716 choose to spend her life in a laboratory out of 0:12:29.796 --> 0:12:32.676 all the things she could have done. It's not hard 0:12:32.716 --> 0:12:36.196 to imagine she was a refugee from Nazi Germany. 0:12:36.876 --> 0:12:39.996 There were times when I remember vividly I interrupted my 0:12:40.076 --> 0:12:42.596 mother because I don't know, I was in sixth grade 0:12:42.636 --> 0:12:45.556 and a boy dumped me or something. I said, Nikki 0:12:45.636 --> 0:12:47.476 dumped me, And she looked at me and she said, 0:12:47.516 --> 0:12:50.276 you know, at your age, I was, you know, in 0:12:50.316 --> 0:12:53.516 an air age shelter, you know, wondering what I was. 0:12:53.476 --> 0:12:54.396 Going to eat. 0:12:55.076 --> 0:12:59.716 A laboratory offered order and certainty and safety. After all, 0:12:59.836 --> 0:13:04.796 she'd been through what happens outside the laboratory doesn't matter, 0:13:05.956 --> 0:13:09.436 and then out of the blue, the outside world does matter. 0:13:10.276 --> 0:13:14.116 A routine disagreement with someone in her lab turned into 0:13:14.156 --> 0:13:18.716 a national story. Marguerite Hamish has been forced to defend 0:13:18.756 --> 0:13:23.676 herself against charges of falsifying data, plagiarism, and mismanaging research 0:13:23.716 --> 0:13:28.476 in her laboratory. Washington Post, January twenty second, nineteen ninety one, 0:13:28.956 --> 0:13:31.236 written by one of my colleagues. I'm not going to 0:13:31.276 --> 0:13:33.716 say who, because I think that any of us back 0:13:33.756 --> 0:13:36.476 then could have written it. It was what we did. 0:13:39.036 --> 0:13:41.556 I remember vividly when the paper came out and one 0:13:41.596 --> 0:13:44.836 of my friends said, have you seen this paper? Have 0:13:44.916 --> 0:13:47.596 you seen this article? And I said what article? And 0:13:47.636 --> 0:13:50.836 they're like, did your mom commit scientific frod. I'm like, no, 0:13:50.916 --> 0:13:52.436 what are you talking about? And I read it and 0:13:52.436 --> 0:13:53.516 I was like, gosh. 0:13:53.236 --> 0:13:53.916 This is bad. 0:13:55.556 --> 0:14:00.036 It was bad. The Homishes didn't want to talk at first. 0:14:00.636 --> 0:14:02.276 They told me they didn't want to dig up all 0:14:02.316 --> 0:14:02.996 those memories. 0:14:04.796 --> 0:14:08.516 I was ready to get her. Fifty seven years it's 0:14:08.556 --> 0:14:12.556 a long time, and I was. I was her protector. 0:14:13.356 --> 0:14:18.156 They had was beyond my relationship, and he couldn't protect 0:14:18.156 --> 0:14:18.556 it from us. 0:14:18.596 --> 0:14:19.596 It was really bad, and that. 0:14:19.716 --> 0:14:22.676 I couldn't protect her in this particular. 0:14:22.156 --> 0:14:28.676 Case, Paul Hamish could not protect my geete anymore. She 0:14:28.796 --> 0:14:31.476 had been swept up in a panic. 0:14:53.236 --> 0:14:56.076 Would you knowingly allow yourself to be treated by a 0:14:56.156 --> 0:14:59.276 doctor with AIDS. It's been just over a year since 0:14:59.356 --> 0:15:03.036 Denis David Acer died of age in Florida, and he 0:15:03.156 --> 0:15:06.756 left five of his former patients with the disease of AIDS. 0:15:07.316 --> 0:15:11.316 The Oprah Winfrey Show, September nineteen ninety one. Oprah's guest 0:15:11.676 --> 0:15:15.116 is twenty three year old Kimberly Bergalis, one of five 0:15:15.196 --> 0:15:17.116 patients infected by doctor Acer. 0:15:17.836 --> 0:15:22.476 Has there been any clarification, Kimberly on how you contracted 0:15:22.476 --> 0:15:26.956 the disease? Was there a cut or was the doctor cut? 0:15:27.076 --> 0:15:29.836 Or was it transmitted through the instrument? Or what? Have 0:15:30.236 --> 0:15:31.396 you been clarified on. 0:15:31.396 --> 0:15:31.996 That as yet? 0:15:32.756 --> 0:15:33.676 No, we haven't. 0:15:34.036 --> 0:15:37.516 You don't, And I suppose at this point it doesn't 0:15:37.796 --> 0:15:38.916 really matter that much. 0:15:39.116 --> 0:15:39.836 It mattered. 0:15:41.356 --> 0:15:44.276 The AIDS epidemic was then at its height, there was 0:15:44.276 --> 0:15:47.436 no effective treatment. The epidemic had started with the gay 0:15:47.436 --> 0:15:50.596 community and IVY drug users and people who had received 0:15:50.676 --> 0:15:55.836 contaminated blood transfusions. But Kimberly Bergalis wasn't gay, or a 0:15:55.916 --> 0:15:58.476 drug user, or someone who had gone through a major 0:15:58.516 --> 0:16:01.996 medical procedure. She was just a college student in Florida, 0:16:02.516 --> 0:16:05.396 a virgin from a religious family, who had done nothing 0:16:05.396 --> 0:16:08.036 more than go see the dentist. If you would have 0:16:08.116 --> 0:16:11.436 chart public fear of a HIV over time, That summer 0:16:11.476 --> 0:16:15.476 of nineteen ninety one, during Kimberly Bergalis's slow and very 0:16:15.476 --> 0:16:20.636 public death, was the peak. Bergalis's parents took her on 0:16:20.676 --> 0:16:23.116 a train from their home in Florida to Washington, d C. 0:16:23.316 --> 0:16:27.796 To testify before Congress. They wanted mandatory HIV testing for 0:16:27.876 --> 0:16:31.716 all health care providers. An army of reporters from around 0:16:31.716 --> 0:16:35.236 the country climbed on board to document her journey. I 0:16:35.356 --> 0:16:40.076 was one of them. Kimberly Bergalis's Ride of Rage September 0:16:40.116 --> 0:16:45.156 twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one, Washington Post. She was down 0:16:45.156 --> 0:16:48.556 to seventy pounds by that point. When she spoke to reporters, 0:16:48.916 --> 0:16:51.756 her father would carry her in his arms. There was 0:16:51.756 --> 0:16:55.516 a sixty minutes episode about her. A long running controversy 0:16:55.636 --> 0:17:00.796 over whether her dentist deliberately infected her. Interviews Headlines and 0:17:00.796 --> 0:17:02.516 then Oprah twice. 0:17:02.996 --> 0:17:05.996 Now in a recent letter to Florida Health officials. Kimberly 0:17:06.156 --> 0:17:10.196 Bergalis makes it clear who she thinks is responsible for 0:17:10.436 --> 0:17:13.996 her having this disease. In an excerpt, Kimberly states, who 0:17:13.996 --> 0:17:16.596 do I blame? Do I blame myself? I sure don't. 0:17:16.996 --> 0:17:20.356 I never had a blood transfusion. I blamed doctor Acer 0:17:20.436 --> 0:17:26.436 and every single one of you, bastard. She says, I'm dying, guys, goodbye. Really, 0:17:26.476 --> 0:17:29.196 we all just are interested in knowing, first of all, 0:17:29.236 --> 0:17:33.276 how you are feeling, and how are you doing. 0:17:35.676 --> 0:17:35.996 Well. 0:17:36.116 --> 0:17:40.476 I'm walking with assistance right now, mm hmm. 0:17:41.236 --> 0:17:43.956 And I'm eating a lot mm hm. 0:17:45.116 --> 0:17:46.996 I'm still pretty weak h. 0:17:48.916 --> 0:17:50.596 But I feel better. 0:17:52.676 --> 0:17:58.116 A few months later, she was gone. The great anxiety 0:17:58.276 --> 0:18:01.156 of the early Aides epidemic was that science and the 0:18:01.196 --> 0:18:06.116 medical establishment had failed us, they hadn't protected us, and 0:18:06.116 --> 0:18:08.236 the regardless case embodied that fear. 0:18:09.116 --> 0:18:12.836 I had a lot of abuse from your medical establishment. 0:18:12.876 --> 0:18:15.076 I think that's one of the most frustrating things. 0:18:15.796 --> 0:18:18.716 When Kimberly appeared on OPRAH the final time, her mother 0:18:18.796 --> 0:18:20.636 Anna was by her side, you. 0:18:20.596 --> 0:18:24.156 Know, my daughter dying. They realized that she is dying. 0:18:24.516 --> 0:18:29.796 They realized that she is dying because of the medical establishment, 0:18:29.876 --> 0:18:34.516 the civil liberties, the gay activist groups and they're not 0:18:34.596 --> 0:18:37.676 doing anything. You know, I'm not emotional, I'm not hysterical. 0:18:37.796 --> 0:18:38.796 I am enraged. 0:18:41.236 --> 0:18:44.276 Ten years into the AIDS epidemic, people had found their 0:18:44.316 --> 0:18:48.756 culprit the medical establishment. Now, of course, just a few 0:18:48.836 --> 0:18:52.036 years later, the same medical establishment that everyone was blaming 0:18:52.036 --> 0:18:54.596 in nineteen ninety one would figure out how to treat 0:18:54.796 --> 0:18:58.676 HIV and the thing that was so scary, infection by 0:18:58.716 --> 0:19:01.396 a healthcare provider would turn out to be a one off, 0:19:01.876 --> 0:19:05.036 incredibly rare. But no one knew that. In a summer 0:19:05.036 --> 0:19:08.916 of nineteen ninety one. All we had was fear and anger. 0:19:09.516 --> 0:19:12.436 And once you start seeing something dark in the motives 0:19:12.436 --> 0:19:16.996 of people in white coats, it doesn't end. Every disagreement, 0:19:17.156 --> 0:19:20.356 every anomaly, every mole hill becomes a scandal. 0:19:22.756 --> 0:19:24.836 We'll call me designed. 0:19:24.836 --> 0:19:30.756 A hoofe building is through the DeFi behen hindi oxino. 0:19:30.916 --> 0:19:34.276 That's exactly what happened with the Belgian Cochysed area. A 0:19:34.316 --> 0:19:38.956 few months earlier, Belgium had been through a crisis. Chickens 0:19:38.956 --> 0:19:42.116 and farms across the country had fallen ill their feet 0:19:42.116 --> 0:19:45.236 had gotten contaminated with dioxin, one of the most toxic 0:19:45.316 --> 0:19:46.356 of all chemicals. 0:19:46.956 --> 0:19:49.436 No, it was major. It was it was It's probably 0:19:49.476 --> 0:19:52.156 one of the biggest food scares in I would say 0:19:52.236 --> 0:19:53.236 maybe in history. 0:19:53.636 --> 0:19:56.996 Benoit Memory, the toxicologist, was in the middle of it. 0:19:57.516 --> 0:20:00.956 The Belgian government had to recall anything that might possibly 0:20:00.996 --> 0:20:05.436 have been in contact with the contaminated feed, eggs, chicken beef. 0:20:06.156 --> 0:20:09.116 The news was filled with talk about how extraordinarily danger 0:20:09.316 --> 0:20:12.876 just dioxins are, how even trace amounts can cause cancer. 0:20:13.756 --> 0:20:17.596 Every day on television you you could see animals that 0:20:17.636 --> 0:20:22.076 were being slaughtered and dumped into mass graves. 0:20:21.676 --> 0:20:24.676 And of a hane specific acid second ant. 0:20:24.756 --> 0:20:27.196 And so. 0:20:29.556 --> 0:20:32.676 Then a few weeks later, a batch of coke smells 0:20:32.676 --> 0:20:36.476 a little funny and the panic starts, a panic born 0:20:36.676 --> 0:20:40.276 entirely in the imagination of terrified children and their parents 0:20:40.276 --> 0:20:41.396 and teachers. 0:20:41.636 --> 0:20:47.316 School children being poisoned by coca cola, which is again 0:20:47.556 --> 0:20:51.716 one of the biggest symbols of our modern food. And 0:20:51.756 --> 0:20:54.716 so that was really the sort of sherry on on 0:20:54.796 --> 0:20:55.836 that rotten cake. 0:20:56.996 --> 0:21:01.876 Epidemics of fear repeat themselves. You start with dioxin, you 0:21:02.036 --> 0:21:05.476 end up with coca cola, You start with kimberly bergalis, 0:21:06.076 --> 0:21:09.676 you end up with margite Hamish. First time is tragedy. 0:21:10.156 --> 0:21:14.956 The second time is farce. On March twenty second, nineteen 0:21:14.996 --> 0:21:18.996 ninety one, the Washington Post published its second article on 0:21:19.036 --> 0:21:22.396 the Homish case. It began the way all the science 0:21:22.436 --> 0:21:27.756 fraud stories of that era began, with a call to authority. Quote. 0:21:27.796 --> 0:21:31.556 The National Institutes of Health has concluded that a top 0:21:31.636 --> 0:21:38.036 scientist at Georgetown University Medical Center committed scientific misconduct by 0:21:38.076 --> 0:21:42.556 knowingly submitting false information in applying for two federal research 0:21:42.636 --> 0:21:46.996 grants end quote. This is now two months after the 0:21:47.036 --> 0:21:49.876 first big piece on the Homish case in the Washington Post. 0:21:50.516 --> 0:21:55.196 The Office of Scientific Integrity has finished its investigation and 0:21:55.276 --> 0:22:01.796 found her guilty. Maybe because this was a story written 0:22:01.836 --> 0:22:04.516 by someone else, and maybe because I could see it 0:22:04.556 --> 0:22:08.236 with fresh eyes, But I remember reading the piece and 0:22:08.276 --> 0:22:13.516 reading it again and wondering, what is this. Something's wrong. 0:22:14.636 --> 0:22:19.396 This was the point I became a skeptic first thing. 0:22:20.396 --> 0:22:22.556 So it sounds like there was some kind of formal 0:22:22.636 --> 0:22:28.796 hearing which ruled against Marguerite Hamish. Right. Actually, No, here's 0:22:28.796 --> 0:22:31.396 the way things worked at the Office of Scientific Integrity. 0:22:31.836 --> 0:22:35.236 They would interview both parties to a disagreement, write up 0:22:35.276 --> 0:22:37.956 their findings, and then just lead them to the press. 0:22:38.556 --> 0:22:41.476 Someone in the office would slip his or her favorite 0:22:41.516 --> 0:22:46.396 reporter a package of documents stamped something like confidential or 0:22:46.436 --> 0:22:50.556 for internal use only, or simply draft, put inside plain 0:22:50.756 --> 0:22:55.316 brown envelopes. I got them. We all got them. Now, 0:22:55.396 --> 0:22:58.236 if you scroll down to the second to last paragraph 0:22:58.276 --> 0:23:02.236 in the Washington Post piece, you'll come to this Hamish, 0:23:02.596 --> 0:23:05.476 who is chief of the Division of Developmental Biology and 0:23:05.596 --> 0:23:10.836 Nutrition in Georgetown's Pediatrics department, have an opportunity to review 0:23:10.916 --> 0:23:15.996 the report and submit a written rebuttal. End quote, will 0:23:16.116 --> 0:23:20.396 have an opportunity she hadn't seen it, and also submit 0:23:20.556 --> 0:23:24.876 a written rebuttal. The OSI had concluded Marguite Hamish was 0:23:24.916 --> 0:23:29.036 a fraud without showing her the evidence or letting her respond. 0:23:31.036 --> 0:23:34.076 I remember once, not long before this, doing another story 0:23:34.116 --> 0:23:36.956 on a science fraud case. I called the attorney for 0:23:37.036 --> 0:23:40.596 the accused, and he said, well, I can't comment because 0:23:40.636 --> 0:23:42.916 I have no idea what my client is accused of. 0:23:43.836 --> 0:23:46.636 I took my leaked OSI report out of its plain 0:23:46.796 --> 0:23:51.716 brown wrapper, photocopied it, and sent it over to him. 0:23:51.796 --> 0:23:55.076 No part of that transaction had seemed weird to me 0:23:55.116 --> 0:23:59.996 at the time. Now, the most important question of all, 0:24:00.596 --> 0:24:04.316 what was it that Marguite Hamish did what was her 0:24:04.676 --> 0:24:07.876 alleged fraud. I have been going on and on about 0:24:07.916 --> 0:24:10.076 this case for a good half power now, and I 0:24:10.116 --> 0:24:13.716 haven't told you you know why, because we didn't know. 0:24:14.436 --> 0:24:16.716 You won't find a good explanation in the Washington Post 0:24:16.756 --> 0:24:19.996 story of March twenty second, nineteen ninety one, just vague 0:24:20.076 --> 0:24:24.796 mentions of an experiment involving rabbits. Well, let me tell 0:24:24.836 --> 0:24:28.676 you the final accusation against marguite Hamish. At the end 0:24:28.756 --> 0:24:32.796 of a twenty thousand word NIH grant application, in a 0:24:32.836 --> 0:24:36.156 section that was completely peripheral to the subject of her 0:24:36.196 --> 0:24:42.156 grant request, Marguite Hamish wrote the following sentence, last, but 0:24:42.276 --> 0:24:45.356 not least, we are presently using the newborn rabbit as 0:24:45.396 --> 0:24:53.516 an animal model for total parential nutrition. After scrutinizing every 0:24:53.556 --> 0:24:57.356 word of her grand application, the OSI said that's wrong 0:24:58.036 --> 0:25:01.356 because at the time Marguite Hamish wrote the grant, she 0:25:01.436 --> 0:25:04.476 didn't actually have the animal model up and running. She 0:25:04.676 --> 0:25:09.156 wasn't presently using newborn rabbits. Their understanding of the the 0:25:09.196 --> 0:25:13.156 word presently was it stands as a synonym for currently. 0:25:15.916 --> 0:25:20.396 Hamish's defense was she had designed the rabbit experiments. She 0:25:20.516 --> 0:25:23.556 had received the money to conduct those experiments, she had 0:25:23.556 --> 0:25:27.556 obtained the special surgical equipment to run the rabbit experiments, 0:25:27.756 --> 0:25:30.996