1
00:00:02,600 --> 00:00:06,560
Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of iHeartRadio and

2
00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:16,720
Speaker 1: Grimm and Mild from Aar and Manky.

3
00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:19,560
Speaker 2: It was the way they moved that caused so much alarm.

4
00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:24,080
Speaker 2: They were mostly men, middle aged, vagrant types of many

5
00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:28,479
Speaker 2: with no control over their hands, and many having trouble walking.

6
00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:32,959
Speaker 2: They stumbled like marionette dolls and bending a knee up

7
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:35,800
Speaker 2: to raise a floppy foot before planting it down on

8
00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:39,680
Speaker 2: the ground again. Then the next leg, as more of

9
00:00:39,720 --> 00:00:43,159
Speaker 2: them came, the doctors at an Oklahoma City hospital started

10
00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:48,200
Speaker 2: making phone calls. A strange scourge was affecting people across

11
00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:51,159
Speaker 2: the country. The doctors initially thought it might be a

12
00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:55,040
Speaker 2: polio outbreak, but quickly realized they were wrong. They had

13
00:00:55,040 --> 00:00:58,520
Speaker 2: been witnessing a lot of strange and scary things during Prohibition.

14
00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:03,240
Speaker 2: It was a time of loopholes. People could no longer

15
00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:06,399
Speaker 2: get alcohol from stores or bars, but they could own it.

16
00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:10,119
Speaker 2: This led to a lot of bootlegging, sure, but also

17
00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:13,600
Speaker 2: a lot of trips to the pharmacy. You see throughout

18
00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:17,680
Speaker 2: history many medicines had some kind of alcohol in them.

19
00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:21,520
Speaker 2: Even during Prohibition, doctors were allowed to prescribe alcohol in

20
00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:25,520
Speaker 2: good faith when he was in New York City, Winston

21
00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:28,800
Speaker 2: Churchill famously suffered a minor blow when hit by a car.

22
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:33,280
Speaker 2: The cure eight fluid ounces of liquor per day, according

23
00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:38,000
Speaker 2: to his doctor. These prescriptions were quick and easy income

24
00:01:38,080 --> 00:01:41,479
Speaker 2: for those doling them out and for those who couldn't

25
00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:44,360
Speaker 2: get a script, and there weren't too many. Over the

26
00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:49,480
Speaker 2: counter options were a popular salve. Jamaican ginger, which was

27
00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:53,320
Speaker 2: mostly just ginger flavored alcohol, was a national favorite for

28
00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:58,680
Speaker 2: all kinds of everyday ailments. But with the Prohibitionary Volstead

29
00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:00,919
Speaker 2: Act came the order for the makers of the tonic

30
00:02:01,040 --> 00:02:03,840
Speaker 2: to reduce the amount of alcohol and double the ginger.

31
00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:08,400
Speaker 2: The result was a sticky, bitter black syrup that in

32
00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:13,560
Speaker 2: no way quenched anyone's palate. Two enterprising men set out

33
00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:17,800
Speaker 2: to fix this. Harry Gross and Max Riseman, two brothers

34
00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:20,960
Speaker 2: in law from Boston, chose a chemical known as triortho

35
00:02:21,080 --> 00:02:25,160
Speaker 2: creusal phosphate or the brand name Lindall to spike and

36
00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:29,919
Speaker 2: repackage the syrup. With the compound was odorless and tasteless,

37
00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:35,320
Speaker 2: but used as an additive in manufacturing laquers, not liquors. However,

38
00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:38,640
Speaker 2: the manufacturer assured them it was safe for human consumption.

39
00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:44,080
Speaker 2: They marketed the product as ginger Jake, but because Lindall

40
00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:48,800
Speaker 2: was in fact a slow acting neurotoxin, a sweeping sickness began.

41
00:02:49,080 --> 00:02:53,320
Speaker 2: In a few months time. From Kansas to Georgia, nearly

42
00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:57,280
Speaker 2: fifty thousand adults were struck by an onset of neurological symptoms.

43
00:02:57,960 --> 00:03:03,320
Speaker 2: They reported numbness, paralysis, and that same strained walk, and

44
00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:07,840
Speaker 2: the latter got nicknamed jake leg, jakefoot, and gingerfoot and

45
00:03:07,919 --> 00:03:11,840
Speaker 2: then some The Food and Drug Administration could do little.

46
00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:16,440
Speaker 2: They were underfunded and understaffed. The investigation was handed over

47
00:03:16,480 --> 00:03:19,560
Speaker 2: to the Treasury Department, which went on to arrest scores

48
00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:23,400
Speaker 2: of bootleggers and pharmacists. At the end of it, Harry

49
00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:25,280
Speaker 2: and Max were discovered to be the culprits of the

50
00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:29,760
Speaker 2: epidemic and arrested for, of all things, misbranding a product.

51
00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:33,520
Speaker 2: But their sentences were suspended and they more or less

52
00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:37,920
Speaker 2: got a stern talking to, and the Ginger Jake survivors

53
00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:40,840
Speaker 2: they lived out the rest of their days bearing the

54
00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:46,880
Speaker 2: physical consequences of Max and Harry's greed. I'm Lorn Vogelbaum.

55
00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:56,600
Speaker 2: Welcome to American Shadows. When we talk about snake oil.

56
00:03:56,640 --> 00:04:01,320
Speaker 2: Today we think of hucksters and fraudsters and their colorful claims,

57
00:04:01,840 --> 00:04:05,520
Speaker 2: But snake oil, the real snake oil, was a legitimate

58
00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:10,480
Speaker 2: product until Clark Stanley showed up. He called himself the

59
00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:13,920
Speaker 2: Rattlesnake King, saying that he learned of the snake's healing

60
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:18,159
Speaker 2: secrets from a Hope medicine man. In actuality, he ripped

61
00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:22,200
Speaker 2: his inspiration from the Chinese immigrants working on the Transcontinental Railroad.

62
00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:25,360
Speaker 2: They brought with them a salve made from the oil

63
00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:29,280
Speaker 2: of the Chinese water snake, used for its anti inflammatory properties.

64
00:04:30,400 --> 00:04:33,159
Speaker 2: Clark knew that he couldn't make a buck selling potions

65
00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:37,200
Speaker 2: and promises to unsuspecting customers. All he needed was a

66
00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:40,880
Speaker 2: good pitch. He was no doctor, but being a salesman

67
00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:45,080
Speaker 2: got him a long way. Once upon a time, folk

68
00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:48,320
Speaker 2: medicine and common sense were used to treat most ailments.

69
00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:51,039
Speaker 2: People took care of their loved ones, but in the

70
00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:54,200
Speaker 2: dire cases a country doctor who may also be a

71
00:04:54,240 --> 00:04:57,560
Speaker 2: pastor or a veterinarian in a spare time might be called.

72
00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:00,919
Speaker 2: But with the Civil War came a great leap in

73
00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:05,600
Speaker 2: medical technology. For a long time, battlefield surgeons and medics

74
00:05:05,640 --> 00:05:09,560
Speaker 2: tried to keep up, but they simply didn't have the tools, knowledge,

75
00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:13,279
Speaker 2: or people power to care for all the troops. Hundreds

76
00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:16,760
Speaker 2: of thousands of soldiers died, but their deaths wouldn't be

77
00:05:16,800 --> 00:05:20,599
Speaker 2: in vain, though not for the patriotic and principled reasons

78
00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:24,000
Speaker 2: you might imagine, as it would end up twice as

79
00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:28,040
Speaker 2: many soldiers died from disease as from battle wounds, and

80
00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:31,000
Speaker 2: because of this there were more bodies at the disposal

81
00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:35,640
Speaker 2: of curious minds than ever before. The Surgeon General called

82
00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:38,760
Speaker 2: for his officers to collect and send over any bits

83
00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:42,760
Speaker 2: and pieces of battlefield epemera of body parts ballistics that

84
00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:47,080
Speaker 2: might be worth studying. Out of these specimens, an Army

85
00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:52,159
Speaker 2: medical museum was created for educational purposes. And as for

86
00:05:52,200 --> 00:05:54,200
Speaker 2: the people who made it home from the battle front,

87
00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:56,960
Speaker 2: they were pitched into the throes of what would become

88
00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:01,960
Speaker 2: America's first opioid crisis. This was no push drummed up

89
00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:05,560
Speaker 2: by big pharma. It was instigated by the Union itself.

90
00:06:07,279 --> 00:06:10,640
Speaker 2: The Army had doled out nearly ten million opium pills

91
00:06:10,640 --> 00:06:13,800
Speaker 2: to its soldiers and almost three million ounces of powdered

92
00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:18,440
Speaker 2: opium and tinctures. The goal was to alleviate suffering, especially

93
00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:22,039
Speaker 2: for those experiencing the long lasting physical effects of war,

94
00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:26,760
Speaker 2: and when those pills ran out, the veterans turned to morphine,

95
00:06:27,240 --> 00:06:30,520
Speaker 2: a drug that was readily available in almost every doctors satchel.

96
00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:34,520
Speaker 2: It was used for everyday ailments, and by the eighteen

97
00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:38,680
Speaker 2: nineties it's estimated that one in two hundred Americans were addicted,

98
00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:43,440
Speaker 2: and many of the people struggling with addiction were, much

99
00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:48,599
Speaker 2: to the establishment's chagrin, women. People were becoming aware of

100
00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:51,960
Speaker 2: how dangerous opiates were, but because they were such a

101
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:55,479
Speaker 2: profitable source of income, many doctors were slow to cease

102
00:06:55,520 --> 00:07:00,080
Speaker 2: writing scripts. One German pharmaceutical company offered their own sell

103
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:03,800
Speaker 2: to the epidemic, a Coff's present and chemical modification of

104
00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:08,960
Speaker 2: morphine they called heroine, and as we know by now,

105
00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:12,080
Speaker 2: people took to it in ways they never could have imagined.

106
00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:17,760
Speaker 2: Clark Stanley, with his rattlesteak oil, wanted in on this

107
00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:21,840
Speaker 2: market of people searching for cures. He showed up at

108
00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:25,080
Speaker 2: the eighteen ninety three Chicago World's Fair with a gruesome

109
00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:29,240
Speaker 2: marketing pitch. The captivated audience watched as he snatched a

110
00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:32,400
Speaker 2: live snake from a bag, slid it open and tossed

111
00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:35,720
Speaker 2: it into a boiling pot. He then skimmed the oil

112
00:07:35,760 --> 00:07:38,520
Speaker 2: off the top, packaging it right up, and selling it

113
00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:43,960
Speaker 2: from his platform to the clamoring audience. In actuality, this

114
00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:47,840
Speaker 2: poor snake had no healing properties, and neither did its oil.

115
00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:51,840
Speaker 2: But soon Clark's oil was all over the market, thanks

116
00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:54,520
Speaker 2: to door to door salesmen and boots at county fairs,

117
00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:58,560
Speaker 2: and nothing more than a blend of beef, fat, turpentine

118
00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:02,720
Speaker 2: and red pepper. In its own way, the world of

119
00:08:02,760 --> 00:08:05,880
Speaker 2: food and medicine was the wild West. It was an

120
00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:10,720
Speaker 2: unregulated landscape marked by hucksters and frauds and no oversight.

121
00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:14,400
Speaker 2: People could claim what they wanted, sell what they wanted,

122
00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:18,880
Speaker 2: and tell people exactly what they wanted to hear. The

123
00:08:18,920 --> 00:08:21,960
Speaker 2: general public was privy to this, and though they wanted

124
00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:24,800
Speaker 2: to believe in these products, they had to be skeptical

125
00:08:25,040 --> 00:08:28,920
Speaker 2: and their lives depended on it. In the early nineteen hundreds,

126
00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:32,599
Speaker 2: concerned citizens, led by women, banded together in favor of

127
00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:36,320
Speaker 2: a pure food bill, lobbying for the safety of their families.

128
00:08:37,080 --> 00:08:39,440
Speaker 2: A moment of triumph came with the passing of the

129
00:08:39,480 --> 00:08:42,760
Speaker 2: Pure Food and Drug Act of nineteen o six with

130
00:08:42,880 --> 00:08:45,480
Speaker 2: the creation of what would eventually become the US Food

131
00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:48,319
Speaker 2: and Drug Administration. It seemed like things were going to

132
00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:53,200
Speaker 2: get better, but in actuality this would take a very

133
00:08:53,280 --> 00:09:04,520
Speaker 2: long time, and with more lives lost along the way.

134
00:09:05,520 --> 00:09:09,120
Speaker 2: Francis sat at her desk, ready to tackle the applications

135
00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:12,040
Speaker 2: in front of her. She had her notepads and her

136
00:09:12,120 --> 00:09:15,120
Speaker 2: pile of pens. She had the confidence of her mentor

137
00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:19,400
Speaker 2: and the US government. Her tenacity and intellect had long

138
00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:23,320
Speaker 2: guided her, and it had gotten her thus far. Even

139
00:09:23,360 --> 00:09:26,200
Speaker 2: though she didn't have a uniform or a badge. She

140
00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:29,600
Speaker 2: was on the front line of defense and the clock

141
00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:33,959
Speaker 2: was ticking and unforgiving. Sitting in her office at the

142
00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:37,679
Speaker 2: Food and Drug Administration, Francis was under the gun, and

143
00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:42,280
Speaker 2: she knew the consequences could be deadly. For centuries, drug

144
00:09:42,320 --> 00:09:46,520
Speaker 2: producers had been getting away with big claims. Their products,

145
00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:51,320
Speaker 2: known as patent medicines, were in effect brilliant exercises in

146
00:09:51,360 --> 00:09:55,719
Speaker 2: the seductive power of marketing. They were advertised on posters

147
00:09:55,880 --> 00:09:59,520
Speaker 2: in newspapers and magazines and flyers. They were pushed by

148
00:09:59,640 --> 00:10:02,960
Speaker 2: travel lling vaudeville style shows and door to door salesmen.

149
00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:07,040
Speaker 2: These drug makers leaned heavily into the world of spectacle

150
00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:11,600
Speaker 2: and miracles, and they often bulked at the most basic

151
00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:15,000
Speaker 2: of safety measures, such as listing ingredients on their labels,

152
00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:19,600
Speaker 2: testing their products, or not flagrantly putting toxins into the

153
00:10:19,640 --> 00:10:24,599
Speaker 2: mouths of unsuspecting people. Such was the world that Francis,

154
00:10:24,840 --> 00:10:29,360
Speaker 2: born in nineteen fourteen, had grown up in. She had

155
00:10:29,360 --> 00:10:31,800
Speaker 2: always known that she had wanted to become some kind

156
00:10:31,800 --> 00:10:35,440
Speaker 2: of scientist. She was applying to pH d programs just

157
00:10:35,520 --> 00:10:38,600
Speaker 2: as the Great Depression hit, and knew that many schools

158
00:10:38,640 --> 00:10:43,040
Speaker 2: were terribly inclined to take women. Still, she applied to

159
00:10:43,080 --> 00:10:46,520
Speaker 2: the new pharmacology department at the University of Chicago and

160
00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:51,400
Speaker 2: received an acceptance letter back addressed to a mister Francis Oldham,

161
00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:55,440
Speaker 2: and she took the posting. She arrived in Chicago in

162
00:10:55,520 --> 00:10:58,280
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty seven, right on time to take on a

163
00:10:58,280 --> 00:11:02,320
Speaker 2: new wonder drug named Elixirs self nildamined, which was suspected

164
00:11:02,360 --> 00:11:04,640
Speaker 2: of causing the deaths of more than one hundred people,

165
00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:08,040
Speaker 2: and most of those dead turned out to be children.

166
00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:12,600
Speaker 2: The public was incensed, and Francis had a new assignment

167
00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:17,800
Speaker 2: figure out where this drug was going wrong. Francis launched

168
00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:21,120
Speaker 2: headlong into her lab work and meticulously splice in part

169
00:11:21,120 --> 00:11:25,600
Speaker 2: the chemical compound. What she found was surprising. In its

170
00:11:25,640 --> 00:11:28,920
Speaker 2: original form, the drug was supremely effective in fighting off

171
00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:33,640
Speaker 2: bacterial infections, but the makers had misstepped when they created

172
00:11:33,679 --> 00:11:38,000
Speaker 2: a liquid, cherry flavored children's version. The Francis and her

173
00:11:38,040 --> 00:11:41,480
Speaker 2: lab mates realized, to their horror that a compound found

174
00:11:41,559 --> 00:11:44,360
Speaker 2: in that version of the elixir was usually used as

175
00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:49,440
Speaker 2: an anti freeze and is a deadly poison. The drug's

176
00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:53,000
Speaker 2: manufacturer was slapped with a fine, not for the resulting

177
00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:57,679
Speaker 2: deaths of consumers, but for mislabeling their product. You see,

178
00:11:57,800 --> 00:12:01,080
Speaker 2: they were not required to demonstrate the products safety before

179
00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:04,760
Speaker 2: it hit the market, but because an elixir by definition

180
00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:08,439
Speaker 2: contained alcohol, and there was no alcohol present in this

181
00:12:08,559 --> 00:12:13,600
Speaker 2: liquid drug, they were caught on a technicality. The general

182
00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:17,760
Speaker 2: public was outraged. In nineteen thirty eight, the Food, Drug

183
00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:21,440
Speaker 2: and Cosmetic Act was signed into law by Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

184
00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:25,040
Speaker 2: which allowed the FDA to require pre market approval of

185
00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:29,000
Speaker 2: all new drugs. This was a huge success for the

186
00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:33,120
Speaker 2: lab and the feather in Francis's cap. Now they just

187
00:12:33,160 --> 00:12:35,679
Speaker 2: needed to figure out how this would work in practice.

188
00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:40,400
Speaker 2: For many years to come, the FDA would be understaffed

189
00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:45,800
Speaker 2: and underfunded. Francis Oldham Kelsey, married to another scientist in

190
00:12:45,880 --> 00:12:49,400
Speaker 2: nineteen forty three, was later invited to join the FDA's

191
00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:53,920
Speaker 2: new Pharmacology Center in nineteen sixty. She was known to

192
00:12:53,960 --> 00:12:57,280
Speaker 2: be a talented analyst and was tasked with reviewing reams

193
00:12:57,320 --> 00:13:01,319
Speaker 2: of applications from pharmaceutical companies a new drugs they wanted

194
00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:05,440
Speaker 2: to sell, But her team was small. She was one

195
00:13:05,520 --> 00:13:08,760
Speaker 2: of just seven full time reviewers whose job it was

196
00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:12,440
Speaker 2: to keep the general public safe from predatory, money hungry

197
00:13:12,559 --> 00:13:17,440
Speaker 2: drug companies. But the greatest kink in the process was time.

198
00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:20,840
Speaker 2: The Francis and her team had a sixty day window

199
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:24,600
Speaker 2: for approving or rejecting a drug, and if they couldn't

200
00:13:24,600 --> 00:13:27,760
Speaker 2: work fast enough, the drug would automatically go to market.

201
00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:32,240
Speaker 2: In her office, she stared down at an application for

202
00:13:32,280 --> 00:13:35,720
Speaker 2: a drug called by the brand name Kevidon. It was

203
00:13:35,840 --> 00:13:39,040
Speaker 2: German in origin, having first appeared on the European market

204
00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:41,920
Speaker 2: under a couple of other brand names, but the drug's

205
00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:46,199
Speaker 2: generic name was belittamide. She had heard of it before.

206
00:13:46,720 --> 00:13:49,560
Speaker 2: It had been used for sleeplessness and upset stomach over

207
00:13:49,559 --> 00:13:53,280
Speaker 2: the counter even since the nineteen fifties. Some of you

208
00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:57,320
Speaker 2: have probably heard of it too, But this drug's dark

209
00:13:57,440 --> 00:14:01,200
Speaker 2: backstory and what it was capable of would take decades

210
00:14:01,280 --> 00:14:16,400
Speaker 2: to unravel. The company that produced the litamide, Richardson Merrill,

211
00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:21,440
Speaker 2: wanted FDA approval, and they wanted it badly. Their warehouses

212
00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:24,480
Speaker 2: were stockpiled with the stuff waiting for the green light

213
00:14:24,560 --> 00:14:27,600
Speaker 2: to go to market. They assumed that the approval would

214
00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:30,080
Speaker 2: come fast and easy, and that they'd make good money

215
00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:34,360
Speaker 2: in the process. The application for the lidamine was glowing.

216
00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:38,440
Speaker 2: It included scores of rave reviews touting all the healing

217
00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:42,000
Speaker 2: properties that a wonder drug could hold, and was especially

218
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:47,440
Speaker 2: popular for treating morning sickness during pregnancy. Richardson Merrill promised

219
00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:50,560
Speaker 2: that the drug was non addictive, non toxic, and had

220
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:55,680
Speaker 2: absolutely no side effects. That last claim, bold and brash,

221
00:14:56,040 --> 00:15:00,720
Speaker 2: was immediately suspect for Francis. The company couldn't have thrown

222
00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:04,080
Speaker 2: up more red flags if they'd tried. It was a

223
00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:08,560
Speaker 2: tale as old as advertising, big claims and empty promises.

224
00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:13,000
Speaker 2: She dove in. What she saw in the application, or

225
00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:17,760
Speaker 2: rather bidn't see, was cause for alarm. There just wasn't

226
00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:22,160
Speaker 2: enough information there about any clinical trials to substantiate these

227
00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:26,720
Speaker 2: big claims. There were no physicians reports, just glowing praise

228
00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:31,200
Speaker 2: from supposed users. In fact, there was nothing objective to

229
00:15:31,240 --> 00:15:34,920
Speaker 2: be had, so she denied the application and sent back

230
00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:39,000
Speaker 2: her request for more information. In short order, she received

231
00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:42,760
Speaker 2: back another stack of paperwork from Richardson Merrill, but the

232
00:15:42,760 --> 00:15:48,000
Speaker 2: additional information they provided was simply more testimonials. Francis simply

233
00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:52,200
Speaker 2: rejected them again. That's when the trouble began to brew.

234
00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:56,840
Speaker 2: Richardson Merrill refused to take no for an answer. They called,

235
00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:00,200
Speaker 2: they wrote, they visited her lab. They put the pressure on.

236
00:16:01,240 --> 00:16:04,800
Speaker 2: She rejected their application a third time, pressing them on

237
00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:08,680
Speaker 2: the question of potential side effects during pregnancy. They assured

238
00:16:08,680 --> 00:16:11,680
Speaker 2: her the drug was safe, and after going over her

239
00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:15,040
Speaker 2: head to the boss, made the concession of allowing warning

240
00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:18,520
Speaker 2: labels to be put on the pills bottles. But to

241
00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:22,120
Speaker 2: Francis this was a meaningless concession. She didn't want to

242
00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:25,520
Speaker 2: take their word for anything. It was when she came

243
00:16:25,560 --> 00:16:28,040
Speaker 2: across a letter in the British Medical Journal that she

244
00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:31,320
Speaker 2: knew she was on the right track. The letter was damning,

245
00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:36,000
Speaker 2: writing about his concern a doctor reported painful pins and

246
00:16:36,040 --> 00:16:39,560
Speaker 2: needle sensations frequently experienced by those he had prescribed the

247
00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:43,400
Speaker 2: drug to. Long term, then came a trickle of similar

248
00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:48,320
Speaker 2: reports documenting cases of bodily numbness, in patience, and severe

249
00:16:48,360 --> 00:16:53,360
Speaker 2: birth defects in their babies. The pharmaceutical company knew about

250
00:16:53,400 --> 00:16:56,560
Speaker 2: the potential for nerve damage, but then neglected to do

251
00:16:56,680 --> 00:17:00,000
Speaker 2: any studies in pregnant patients or even in pregnant animal

252
00:17:00,280 --> 00:17:03,960
Speaker 2: other than humans, and what little they did know, they

253
00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:08,600
Speaker 2: hid and pushed the drug to market. Even darker still,

254
00:17:08,800 --> 00:17:13,240
Speaker 2: belitamide has roots in the Holocaust. In the shadow of

255
00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:17,200
Speaker 2: World War II, twin brothers Hermann and Alfred Wurtz created

256
00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:21,119
Speaker 2: a company called Kemy Grunenthal. It became a haven for

257
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:24,480
Speaker 2: Nazi scientists who had spent the last few years experimenting

258
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:29,560
Speaker 2: on captives at concentration camps. The brothers hired Martin Stemler,

259
00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:32,800
Speaker 2: who was a lead thinker on the Nazi population policy

260
00:17:33,000 --> 00:17:36,760
Speaker 2: and racial hygiene program. A fancy way of saying he

261
00:17:36,840 --> 00:17:40,760
Speaker 2: got to choose whether people lived or died. They also

262
00:17:40,800 --> 00:17:44,200
Speaker 2: brought in Heinrich Muktar, an expert on anti typhus work

263
00:17:44,480 --> 00:17:47,639
Speaker 2: and single handedly responsible for scores of deaths across the

264
00:17:47,680 --> 00:17:53,240
Speaker 2: concentration camps and ghettos. And finally there was Otto Ambrose,

265
00:17:53,440 --> 00:17:57,320
Speaker 2: who had been given the nickname the Devil's Chemist. He

266
00:17:57,400 --> 00:18:00,760
Speaker 2: was Adolf Hitler's chief chemical weapons engineer and was brought

267
00:18:00,800 --> 00:18:06,199
Speaker 2: on as the chairman of Grunenthal's advisory board. Ambrose was

268
00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:08,760
Speaker 2: known for his work with a nerve toxin called serin.

269
00:18:09,680 --> 00:18:12,880
Speaker 2: If you recall the horrifying stories of the gas chambers

270
00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:16,159
Speaker 2: used to execute millions at these camps, then you know

271
00:18:16,280 --> 00:18:21,680
Speaker 2: this chemical an antidote was developed, and this drug, later

272
00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:24,919
Speaker 2: claimed by Grunenthal to have been created before World War II,

273
00:18:25,880 --> 00:18:29,840
Speaker 2: was Deldamite. In a potential effort to cover up the

274
00:18:29,880 --> 00:18:33,239
Speaker 2: drug's dark past, the company didn't release records of its

275
00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:37,080
Speaker 2: early trials, but documentation from the camps later revealed its

276
00:18:37,080 --> 00:18:41,800
Speaker 2: extensive testing. They knew it was an effective sedative and

277
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:45,439
Speaker 2: also calmed upset stomachs, so they brought it to market

278
00:18:45,640 --> 00:18:49,119
Speaker 2: in dozens of countries in the mid nineteen fifties, But

279
00:18:49,240 --> 00:18:53,600
Speaker 2: soon a wave of birth effects began appearing. Doctors were

280
00:18:53,600 --> 00:18:57,920
Speaker 2: seeing underdeveloped or missing limbs and defects in the internal organs.

281
00:18:58,880 --> 00:19:00,840
Speaker 2: It would later be found to the pill was enough

282
00:19:00,840 --> 00:19:03,919
Speaker 2: to harm i fetis, and some mothers were taking several

283
00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:07,320
Speaker 2: a day. The first child thought to be affected by

284
00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:11,240
Speaker 2: this drug was in fact born to a Kemi Grunenthal employee.

285
00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:16,879
Speaker 2: It didn't stop until nineteen sixty one, another concerned doctor

286
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:20,000
Speaker 2: published a bombshell letter in the medical journal The Lancet

287
00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:24,960
Speaker 2: linking the lidamide to these horrific birth defects. Grunenthal could

288
00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:27,720
Speaker 2: no longer deny the claims, and the company removed the

289
00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:31,240
Speaker 2: drug from the market that year, but no one was

290
00:19:31,280 --> 00:19:35,320
Speaker 2: ever charged. It's believed that over eight thousand babies with

291
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:39,760
Speaker 2: severe delamide birth defects were born worldwide. No one knows

292
00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:42,240
Speaker 2: how many tens of thousands more died in the womb

293
00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:47,000
Speaker 2: or shortly after birth. Seventeen of these claims were confirmed

294
00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:50,360
Speaker 2: to be linked to Richardson Merrill, who was so excited

295
00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:53,440
Speaker 2: to get their wonder drug de litamide to market, prematurely

296
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:58,200
Speaker 2: distributed the pills to doctor's offices. If Francis didn't get

297
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:00,600
Speaker 2: a chance to deny the application for a four worth time,

298
00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:04,800
Speaker 2: because Richardson Merrill withdrew it once and for all, the

299
00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:08,320
Speaker 2: link between this drug and this harm came too late

300
00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:12,600
Speaker 2: for tens of thousands of families, but Francis had quietly

301
00:20:12,640 --> 00:20:16,560
Speaker 2: saved thousands more by asking questions about what lay in

302
00:20:16,600 --> 00:20:30,160
Speaker 2: the shadows. Francis's career was ascendant. She became the new

303
00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:33,240
Speaker 2: head of the Investigational Drug branch of the FDA and

304
00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:36,320
Speaker 2: worked at the organization until she was ninety years old.

305
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:38,520
Speaker 2: She passed away at the age of one hundred and

306
00:20:38,520 --> 00:20:43,840
Speaker 2: one in twenty sixteen. The latamaide and meanwhile is still around.

307
00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:48,080
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty four, a desperate doctor was trying to

308
00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:52,119
Speaker 2: find relief for his leprosy patients. No painkillers were working.

309
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:55,520
Speaker 2: He knew the littemi hade caused birth defects, but no

310
00:20:55,560 --> 00:20:59,520
Speaker 2: one could deny its tranquilizing properties. He was surprised to

311
00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:02,720
Speaker 2: see that, within three days of administering the drug, all

312
00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:07,400
Speaker 2: of his patient's skin lesions had healed. By the nineteen seventies,

313
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:10,040
Speaker 2: the drug was approved on an experimental basis by the

314
00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:14,520
Speaker 2: FDA to treat inflammatory skin conditions. Since then, it's been

315
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:20,480
Speaker 2: used for symptoms related to HIV, IBS, arthritis, and lupis. Recently,

316
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:24,280
Speaker 2: it's been found successful in treating multiple myeloma blood cancer.

317
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:29,240
Speaker 2: Philidamide is finally doing some good in the world. Now

318
00:21:29,280 --> 00:21:33,040
Speaker 2: that it's finally undergoing the research the Kemi Grunenthal neglected

319
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:42,200
Speaker 2: so many decades ago, There's more to this story. Stick

320
00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:44,840
Speaker 2: around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

321
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:55,800
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Sherman was one of the lucky kids. He was

322
00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:58,639
Speaker 2: just five years old and so excited to tell his

323
00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:02,439
Speaker 2: dad about what had happened at Scoll that day. Just

324
00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:04,960
Speaker 2: a few years earlier, people had been living in fear

325
00:22:05,119 --> 00:22:08,920
Speaker 2: of the virus. They were getting sick and staying sick.

326
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:13,239
Speaker 2: Every summer brought with it about of new outbreaks, and

327
00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:17,560
Speaker 2: parents couldn't help but worry. Kids were especially susceptible to

328
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:22,320
Speaker 2: the havoc the polio wrought. The virus, made famous by

329
00:22:22,320 --> 00:22:26,160
Speaker 2: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was thought to be a childhood disease.

330
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:30,359
Speaker 2: While many children ended up being okay, others would suffer

331
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:32,760
Speaker 2: the rest of their lives from damage to their central

332
00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:38,119
Speaker 2: nervous system. Some were permanently paralyzed and some died. But

333
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:42,200
Speaker 2: by nineteen fifty four a solution had finally been found.

334
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 2: That year, mass andoculations proved to be highly successful. By

335
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:51,440
Speaker 2: August of nineteen fifty five, more than four million doses

336
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:54,359
Speaker 2: had been given, and one of the best ways to

337
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 2: get these shots into the arms of kids was to

338
00:22:56,720 --> 00:23:00,400
Speaker 2: give them in school, as if pop quizzes weren't scared enough.

339
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:06,080
Speaker 2: Doctor Albert Saban, though, had a less fearsome solution. He

340
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 2: was working on an oral vaccine, one that would be

341
00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:12,120
Speaker 2: able to be administered more easily. When Jeffrey got back

342
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,679
Speaker 2: from school, he had a story, but his dad was distracted.

343
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:20,000
Speaker 2: Work wasn't going well. Robert Sherman was in the midst

344
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 2: of a crippling bout of writer's block, brought on by

345
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 2: the high stress of meeting a perfect deliverable. His boss

346
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:29,600
Speaker 2: had hand picked him for the job, and no one

347
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:35,040
Speaker 2: wanted to disappoint Walt Disney. Humoring his son, Robert asked

348
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 2: him to tell him about getting the shot, and Jeffrey

349
00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:40,239
Speaker 2: quickly corrected him, but he told his dad that it

350
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 2: wasn't a shot. Instead, the nurse gave him a little

351
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 2: sugar cube with a drop of medicine on it, and

352
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 2: he got to eat it. Robert abruptly halted. It came

353
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 2: to him he had an idea. He quickly called his brother,

354
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 2: a fellow songwriter working on the New Disney movie. One

355
00:23:57,520 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 2: of their tunes had been scrapped and they couldn't figure

356
00:23:59,880 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 2: out how to replace it. Nothing was landing. Mistakes forgetting

357
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:08,120
Speaker 2: this new film right were very, very high. Robert got

358
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,879
Speaker 2: back to work. He started scratching at a piece of

359
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 2: paper and beget a masterpiece. Mary Poppins arrived in theaters

360
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty four. She brought with her an iconic

361
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:24,120
Speaker 2: parasol in words of wisdom, including if you can remember

362
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 2: the idea that just a spoonful of sugar helps the

363
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 2: medicine go down.

364
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:46,119
Speaker 1: American Shadows as hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was

365
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 1: written by Robin Miniature, researched by Ali Steed, and produced

366
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:54,359
Speaker 1: by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mankey,

367
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn more about the show,

368
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 1: visit Grimminmile dot com. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit

369
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

370
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: podcasts